In nearly three months, as of March 1, nearly 77 million people have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. With President Biden’s goal to achieve 100 million COVID vaccinations in the first 100 days of the administration, government and health officials now must corral communication and distribution strategies.
Recently, vaccine communications have triggered varying levels of confusion across the states. Who is allowed to get the vaccine? When can I get it and how do I sign up? For example, Arizona, Florida, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania all experienced various levels of inconsistencies and confusion with their vaccine rollout. State governments employees are working quickly and diligently to coordinate complex, time-sensitive processes, all while information is changing daily with the federal government.
Adapting quickly to crisis situations is not new for state employees. With COVID-19, states had to constantly adapt to quickly evolving information with testing, distancing protocols, and new research emerging about the virus. U.S. Digital Response has been working with partners at the local, state, and federal levels to help improve and streamline the collection and dissemination of information. As we found in our previous pandemic research, people are overwhelmed and inundated with COVID information and are unsure of who to go to and where to find information for their specific needs. In addition, the urgency of the crisis is unprecedented and the success of vaccine programs will depend heavily on how governments set expectations and communication with the public.
With these concepts in mind, USDR set out to better understand how governments can minimize confusion and help people take action to get vaccinated. We focused on three key questions:
- Mental Model: How do people currently think about getting a vaccine with regard to urgent, their place in line, and the process to get vaccinated?
- Current Actions and Roadblocks: How do people currently navigate information around how they will get a vaccine?
- Opportunity: What opportunity do governments have to host and create clear, actionable information about how people can get vaccinated?
In the span of two days, we conducted six one-on-one interviews, with a focus on recruiting individuals with a mix of technical savviness, demographics with essential work and age variation. To better gauge how people navigate and translate vaccine information, we usability tested ABC7’s Vaccine Planner Tool and screen shared as they navigated finding and interpreting vaccine information online. We also did a landscape review of existing non-profits, government websites, and news media organizations to learn about existing vaccine type tools and communication strategies.
The research involved in this work is limited and will not definitely predict how people will search for information about COVID vaccines. These findings are not intended to be statistically significant or representative. Instead, these anecdotal usability studies and deep dive conversations highlight how people may think about navigating a search for a COVID vaccine. For example, from this work, we cannot extrapolate what percentage of the population would prefer to go to their primary care provider for information as opposed to referring to the CDC’s guidance on their own. What is clear is that different audiences will have different preferences, and state and local governments (for example) can use some of these nuances to better segment their audiences and build services to meet their needs. It also is valuable to show how, especially in a resource constrained pandemic time, states may be able to usability test their own services, without a full time research team or staff to build out a robust research study.
From the sessions, we gathered key insights around mental models, current actions and roadblocks, and opportunities to improve vaccine communications. To understand how people search and perceive vaccine information, we conducted remote contextual inquiry with the goal of observing how people find the answer(s) to: “When will you be able to get a vaccine?” We share a few in depth snippets from our usability studies here.
Search 1: Multiple searches, vague information, PDF downloads, and no answer
We spoke with a grocery store clerk in Portland, Oregon who, after two Google searches, and six separate websites with a few PDF downloads, was able to say she was in “the CDC’s Group 1B.” As she was navigating online, the participant mentioned she was looking for “.gov” domains and websites without too many advertisements. After a few minutes and unsuccessful attempts to find clear information, she assumed “people won’t know when they’ll get it since [this information] is not widely available” and stopped looking.
Search 2: State government and public health websites that highlight a prioritization framework, with no current details on next steps
The teacher from the Bronx searched Google for, “Covid vaccine priority New York” and navigated through the website links. Several clicks later, he landed on ny.gov’s “Vaccine Prioritization Matrix,” and walked me through his thought process. “I think I’d be in the general population and I guess that my zip code in the Bronx means that COVID is relatively high,” he said. “If I am deemed an essential worker, I am a priority 3 and if not, I’d be priority 5.” The participant’s searches were scoped to local and state information and he was comfortable without any concrete details or next steps. ”This is what I mostly expected,” he said.
Search 3: Going straight to workplace resources or to your primary care provider
Another method highlighted by our participants was to go directly to their work or doctor’s online resources. A theater teacher from Charlottesville, Virginia first navigated to her public school’s website and was unable to find anything for staff members, so went directly to her primary care provider who usually gets back to her in a day or so. “The other thing I would do is go to my next school board meeting and ask leadership directly,” she said. The next day, she received a response from her doctor’s office. “It’s sad they don’t have anything planned for the future — if they want teachers to work, they should help us get vaccinated.”
These are just a few of many ways participants think through and navigate a variety of resources to get a COVID-19 vaccine. There is clearly more work to be done as vaccines continue to roll out this year. Our hope is that governments will continue to engage directly with people to understand how to outline clear and actionable information, and reduce burden for constituents to be healthy and safe during the pandemic.
To view more information and high level takeaways and recommendations, please view our policy memo and review the full deck of insights from this research.
U.S. Digital Response is partnering with governments and nonprofits across the country to address needs related to the COVID-19 crisis, including vaccine preparedness and communications. To learn more about USDR’s work, visit our website for a full menu of USDR’s health-focused offerings.
If you are a government or nonprofit seeking assistance with your communications strategies or COVID response efforts, connect with our team by filling out this brief intake form and we’ll get back to you within 24 hours.