Email Instructions

CHW Vaccine Messaging Survey – Draft Email Correspondence

Introductory Email Invitation

Subject line: Invitation to Participate in A Brief Questionnaire on Health Messaging to Promote Vaccine Uptake

Dear Colleague:

The Office of Regional Health Operations (ORHO) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office of the Assistant Secretary of Health (OASH), is requesting your support in an important initiative aimed at increasing community knowledge and confidence in vaccines among older African American adults with a focus on community health workers (CHWs).

Project Overview

ORHO connects people, convenes local partners, and establishes networks to promote and advance the public health and safety of the American people. Regional Health Administrators (RHAs) within each of the 10 Regional Offices serve to foster coordination and collaboration across federal departments and HHS agencies and as extensions of OASH to ensure that HHS priorities are translated and implemented at the local, state, tribal, and national levels.

Recently, HHS released the National Strategic Plan for Vaccines 2021–2025, highlighting the specific need to “reduce disparities and inequities, increase access to and use of routinely recommended vaccines across the lifespan.” Vaccine uptake for adults has been low, and disparities persist among racial and ethnic populations. To address these disparities and encourage vaccination among adults, promotional materials on herpes zoster (shingles) and pneumococcal (pneumonia) vaccines were developed, with a specific goal of reaching African Americans aged 50 and older.

We would like to invite you to participate in a brief online survey specific to vaccine messaging and vaccine uptake. Survey responses will be anonymous and should take about XX minutes to complete. Your participation is important and will help ORHO to:

• Assess the effectiveness of culturally appropriate promotional materials to increase community knowledge of and confidence in herpes zoster and pneumococcal vaccines among African American CHWs over the age of 50.

• Assess perceptions of risk, barriers, and motivations related to general uptake of adult vaccines, including the COVID-19 vaccine.

We would appreciate you disseminating this survey within your organization and networks, particularly among African American CHWs aged 50 and older.

Accessing the Survey

To access and complete the survey, please click on the following link: [SURVEY LINK]. This link can also be forwarded to individuals and organizations within your networks. We kindly request that the survey be completed no later than Month, Day, 2022.

Thank you in advance for your participation. If you have any questions about this project, please contact Corstella Johnson ([email protected]). If you are having technical difficulties completing the survey, please contact [email protected].

Sincerely yours,

Name, Title

Reminder Email (To be sent one week and two weeks after initial invitation)

Subject line: Your participation is vital to understanding how best to increase community knowledge and confidence in the herpes zoster and pneumococcal vaccines among older African American CHWs.

Dear Colleague,

You were recently invited by The Office of Regional Health Operations (ORHO) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), to participate in an online survey about vaccine messaging and uptake. Your feedback is critical to ORHO in understanding the risks, barriers, and motivations related to uptake of adult vaccines among African American Community Health Workers (CHWs).

The survey asks questions about the best approaches to increasing awareness of and confidence in vaccines, as well as questions about specific messages developed for African American CHWs over the age of 50. Responses are anonymous, as no contact information is requested. The estimated time to complete the survey is XX minutes. If you have not yet completed the survey, you can access it here: [SurveyMonkey link] and complete it by no later than [DATE]. We encourage you to share this email with your organization and CHW networks for their participation as well.

If you have questions specific to the content of the survey, please contact Corstella Johnson ([email protected]).

If you are having technical difficulties completing the survey, please contact [email protected].

Thank you for your support of this important effort!

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