Australia needs to arm itself with a thoughtful and strategic vaccination campaign
Australia’s COVID vaccine “stroll-out” has us lagging at the bottom of OECD nations, with less than 10% of our population fully vaccinated. While limited vaccine supply has been a significant factor in these delays, we also face a crisis of poor communication around COVID vaccination.
It’s a nightmare of missed opportunity, complacency, and incompetent leadership.
To witness the incredible scientific feat of delivering multiple vaccines against a previously unknown coronavirus within a year has been nothing short of amazing. But seeing the delays and missteps in the roll-out of those vaccines in Australia leaves many feeling a very different sense of amazement.
We had a head start on the problem, we bought ourselves time through excellent public health responses, some good luck, and a geographical advantage. We have squandered much of that advantage and have burnt a lot of hard-won public trust and goodwill along the way.
Complacency endures
Vaccine hesitancy was always going to be an important part of the communication challenge. In early 2019, the World Health Organisation identified it as one of the 10 biggest threats to global health, just before the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic.
But hesitancy is only one aspect of the problem. Vaccine complacency – where we have relatively low infection rates, but face closed borders, restricted travel and rolling intermittent lockdowns – has also emerged as a significant issue. There’s an apparent willingness among some age groups to ride out the disruption while waiting for their preferred vaccine “brand”.
Australians have faced incredibly confusing messaging about vaccination at various levels, compounded by the deliberate and accidental spread of disinformation and misinformation.
I’m a scientist, so I can wrap my head around dynamic risk profiles and evolving evidence. But many people can’t. It’s hard to imagine more confusing messaging coming from the government and peak bodies regarding the risks, accessibility and efficacy of various vaccines, which is sometimes contradicted by peak bodies like the Australian Medical Association.
Who can blame the public for interpreting these conflicting and constantly changing messages as confusion and obfuscation? This can in turn fuel fear and anxiety, as many people feel that they are not well-equipped to make informed decisions regarding vaccination.
It points to a deep absence of co-ordination or strategy around communication, exacerbated by political division and a failure of leadership. It really feels like we need to turn the whole thing off and on again – if only we had that luxury.
Cutting through the chaos
The media also bear some responsibility here. There’s a tension between transparency and sensationalism around reporting vaccine adverse effects. Transparency is important for building and maintaining trust. But by making a headline out of every rare event without careful context, we severely bias public perception of risk. It’s such a tightrope to walk.
Wading into this mess, bad-faith actors and contrarians with big audiences and political and financial motivations have rushed to exploit the existing anxiety and confusion around vaccines. Social media platforms, regulators and political parties have been too slow to act in squelching their bulls—t
An army of excellent expert communicators are doing their best to fill the void and cut through the chaos to give the public clear information, with little support or resources. But they can’t possibly achieve the same impact as a coordinated, well-resourced government information campaign. We can’t even get clear communication of our existing expert recommendations, one of which – ironically – reinforces the importance of providing clear communications to people who have received or are considering vaccination against COVID-19.
In the face of such chaos, where is the strategic response to a predictable and critical barrier to getting the best possible acceptance and uptake of vaccination? Where is the creative, convincing campaign to support informed decision-making and encourage vaccination? What would an effective information campaign even look like?
With limited vaccine supply, governments are caught in a Catch-22. They need to address pockets of hesitancy/complacency and misinformation, but risk fuelling anger and frustration if they drive a huge increase in vaccine demand which supply cannot match.
We got our first look at a new Arm Yourself campaign from the Commonwealth Government this week, and it feels more like a placeholder than any serious attempt to address the problem. Another, more graphic ad showing a young woman with COVID struggling to breath is designed to appeal to emotion. But it doesn’t reflect medical reality and cynically shifts blame for systemic failure to individuals. Such insensitivity will only increase frustration and distress among younger people who can’t yet access vaccines. Both ads are a poor answer to the wrong question. They are out of touch, and they don’t address the main concerns being expressed by the intended audience.
An effective national campaign needed
Some countries are way ahead of Australia on this, with clear and effective communication relevant to their local situations
The French made a simple but evocative appeal to motivation, drawing a direct line between vaccination and life returning to “normal” through ending lockdown. The New Zealand government came up with a quirky but clever campaign that speaks to the power of reaching diverse audiences. The NHS in England leveraged the power of celebrity and humour with their TV commercial to promote the UK’s coronavirus vaccine campaign.
In Australia, Channel 9, a private media company, mounted a campaign to encourage vaccination. Even though its #getvaccinated video was rightly criticised for its lack of diversity, it had some very effective aspects. It used the channel’s well-known talent to speak directly to their audience, with a very simple message: trusted voices reminding us that vaccination will help get our lives back to normal.
It’s really good, but the fact that Channel 9 saw a need to make the video in the first place highlights the importance of having a government-sponsored campaign aimed at a broader audience.
Just as we have listened to medical experts in guiding our COVID response, we must listen to social scientists and communication experts in devising any campaign to encourage vaccination.
A group of Australian experts under the banner The Collaboration on Social Science Australian in Immunisation recently published their excellent recommendations for communicating with the public about COVID vaccines.
These include:
- Clinical communication
- Supporting valid consent
- Helping people to weigh risk and benefit
- Communicating frequently about process and outcomes
- Making values explicit
- Using clear, accurate, actionable messages
- Promoting vaccination without over-reassurance
- Diversifying communication channels and platforms
- Identifying and addressing misinformation
- Prioritising key groups for communication
- Using credible spokespeople
- Sustaining trust
- Using data to inform action.
Any campaign must be conceived in the Australian context, and it must be considerate of the diverse audiences and their questions, fears and motivations. It needs to offer a pathway towards long-term stability, not just reactionary, short-term directives.
It needs to be co-ordinated across different channels and platforms to reach key population groups. It can’t just rely on traditional and online media – it must also be designed to support local GPs and other clinicians in providing clear, consistent advice in a clinical environment. Getting our political leaders and high-profile experts to agree on clear and consistent messaging is crucial.
We face a major challenge in Australia. Vaccination is our only hope in a return to normalcy. Thought bubbles from politicians aren’t good enough. We need a strategic, thoughtful and co-ordinated communication effort to reach that goal.
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Article by Darren Saunders
Photo Credit: Photo supplied