Vaccine Hesitancy in Black/African Americans With Rheumatic Diseases

Leveraging Community-Academic Partnerships and Social Networks to Disseminate Vaccine-Related Information and Increase Vaccine Uptake Among Black Individuals With Rheumatic Diseases.

To establish the efficacy of a community-based POL (Popular Opinion Leader) intervention with two different trainings designed to increase COVID-19 vaccine and booster uptake and reduce hesitancy among social networks of Black individuals with rheumatic conditions. The investigators will also determine the structure and composition of the personal and outreach social networks of POLs.

Through community-academic partnerships in Boston and Chicago, investigators will recruit and randomly assign POLs who identify as Black with rheumatic conditions to two training arms in each city. Arms 1 and 2 will receive the same core curriculum addressing COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, safety and efficacy. POLs will work in their communities to distributed information they learned in the trainings to members of their social network. The investigators will gather information about these social networks, assessing for differences in characteristics such as size, location, and who is in it (percentage of family, percentage Black, percentage with rheumatic conditions).

Participants are unblinded but study has non-disclosure component of keeping the difference between the two training arms as non-disclosed until the conclusion of the study.

Group training involving COVID-19 vaccine and booster information, including background, development, and myths.

Group training involving COVID-19 vaccine and booster information, including background, development, and myths. Contains extra training component that is undisclosed until the end of the study so as not to introduce bias.

This will be measured as documentation of receipt of >1 additional COVID-19 vaccine or booster dose above network members' baseline number of doses, scored yes or no.

This will be measured as the network members' absolute change in vaccine hesitancy scale score comparing 6 months to baseline between the two study arms, using the validated 10-item Likert Vaccine Hesitancy Scale, score range 10-50.

A mixed methods social network assessment tool will be used to compare the structures and compositions of the outreach social networks of the Popular Opinion Leaders between the two intervention arms. This is not scored but rather used to create social network map and to understand characteristics of social networks.

Inclusion Criteria: POLs: 18-85 years old All genders English-speaking Self-identify as Black and/or African American and/or African descent (Dominican, Haitian) Any ethnicity Social network members: At least 18 years of age All genders English-speaking or Haitian Creole or Spanish-speaking if the POL speaks Spanish Not be fully vaccinated Exclusion Criteria: Both POLs and social network members: Under 18 years of age Pregnant women Institutionalized or incarcerated Those who are up to date on COVID vaccinations