COVID-19 Multicultural Communications:
Embracing Health Center Patients’ Diverse Demographic Differences to Meet People Where They Are
Multicultural Communications Tips

Consider these tips to strengthen your health center’s efforts to build COVID-19 vaccine confidence among your diverse patient population:
 
Tailor messages and communications products to each population to ensure they resonate
Use simple language that can be easily translated and accurately understood
Aim to produce content at a 4th- 6th grade reading level
Test messages and materials with the audience
Use imagery and photos that mirror your patient population and their surroundings
If budget is limited, consider using graphically designed faceless, yet comforting, images of people from various backgrounds
Work with trusted community leader messengers to share and disseminate materials
Communicate through multiple channels including social media, patient newsletters, website, and patient text messages

Special thanks to Jody Sahota, Advocacy and Communications Manager, Alameda Health Consortium and Clare Gunther, Chief Advancement & Communications Officer, Lowell Community Health Center for sharing their insights from leading multicultural COVID-19 vaccine communications efforts for their health centers.
COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTERS IN ACTION
COVID-19 CONVERSATIONS 

This month, NACHC talks with Jody Sahota, Advocacy and Communications Manager, Alameda Health Consortium. The health consortium is a regional association of eight community health centers that together serve 300,000 patients in Alameda County, California. These health centers serve a highly diverse patient population where 27 languages are spoken.

Sahota shares with NACHC how the consortium developed and disseminated audience-informed, multicultural and multilingual communication to help build vaccine confidence, clarify misinformation, and build public acceptance of mask wearing in the East Bay California area with its campaign Mask On to Move On.
Lowell Community Health Center Leverages New Technology to Increase Equitable Access to COVID-19 Vaccinations Among its Multilingual Patient Community
COVID-19 Vaccinations for Agricultural Workers –
Building Their Vaccine Confidence and Meeting Them Where They Are
MONTHLY RESOURCES
Six New COVID-19 Vaccine
Education Toolkits Now Available

The Ad Council and COVID Collaborative's COVID-19 Vaccine Education Initiative has released six COVID-19 vaccine education toolkits to help build COVID-19 vaccine confidence. These toolkits include messaging tips about language and tone that best resonate with difference audiences, audience insights to better understand low vaccine confidence among diverse communities, and CDC approved digital and downloadable print communication materials. 
Creating a Business Continuity Plan for Your Health Center

This new manual provides community health centers and Primary Care Associations with an easy-to-use-tool to create and/or improve their business continuity plan (BCP) and program. The manual guides users through the nine key components of a BCP with dozens of templates and sample tools that can be adapted through each step of the BCP process. Want to learn more? Register here for the two free remaining virtual Business Continuity Institute sessions.
COVID-19 Educational Resources for Agricultural Workers

The National Center for Farmworker Health has literacy-sensitive resources including print, video, audio and radio files, social media content, and images. They are available in Spanish, Haitian Creole, and indigenous languages such as Triqui, Mam, and Mixteco. Click here to learn more. 

We are listening!
CDC and NACHC heard your stories and recent struggles around vaccines in your communities. We will be conducting listening sessions with care team members across the country to develop an animated web-based application to build vaccine confidence. Stay tuned for more information on findings.

This publication is supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award totaling $2,000,000, with 100 percent funded by CDC/HHS. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by CDC/HHS, or the U.S. Government.