HJBR May/Jun 2021

40 MAY / JUN 2021 I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF BATON ROUGE LDH CORNER all have limited reach. There are many people who needed time to make up their minds about the vaccine — to learn more about how they work, to hear more from their friends, families and co-workers, to find out how to get a vaccine quickly and conveniently. We also have to acknowledge that peo- ple are busy. Many people in Louisiana have lost jobs, scrambled to find new ones and may be working more hours for less pay because of the nature of this crisis. Many people also have families to take care of, including young children, aging parents and grandparents, so it can be difficult to find time to do the research to make them com- fortable with vaccines. Once people do find time to do research and decide the vaccine on-the-fence and hard-to reach commu- nities. In order to provide education and answers about the safety and effectiveness of these vaccines, we need to listen to their needs and break barriers so that every Loui- sianan has the opportunity to get the COVID vaccine, including close to where they live and work. We’ve already been proactively reaching out to large employers — especial- ly work sites like food processing facilities where outbreaks have occurred in the past — to help employers get in on the outreach effort. The traditional methods we’ve been us- ing for educational outreach on COVID-19, such as webinars, online toolkits and paid campaigns (among others), have all been effective. But we also realized they would THIS IS A BIG JOB, and the actual vaccina- tions of millions of Louisianans cannot oc- cur without an effective education and out- reach campaign. We know from survey data, focus groups and from the conversations our partners are having on the ground that there are many questions about the vaccine that still need answers. We cannot assume that just because the vaccines received au- thorization in December, the information Louisianans need in order to make a deci- sion has made it to their communities or to their eyes and ears. That’s why we announced our “Bring Back Louisiana” campaign in March. It’s a grassroots effort to follow the data and work with local partners to “meet people where they are,” especially in our underserved, COLUMN LDH CORNER When it comes to COVID-19 vaccines in Louisiana, the Louisiana Department of Health has one major goal: getting vaccines into as many arms as quickly and equitably as possible to end this pandemic. We’ll Need Vaccines — And All of Us To Bring Back Louisiana,