Justification for FFG Parent FG 04-12-23

The Market Research emergency clearance package OMB approved in January 2021 covers a series of Foundational Focus Groups (FFGs) to examine the topics of preventative behaviors and vaccine knowledge, intent, attitudes, and barriers and motivators to vaccination. As noted within the original submission, the composition of audiences and content will change between iterations to accommodate the current state of COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccination.

As such, the focus group discussion guide is revised to include questions about vaccine attitudes among parents of children aged 5–11 years old, given the recent approval of updated vaccine doses for younger children (5-11 years old), and the relatively low uptake of initial COVID-19 vaccines among younger children (41% for children 5-11 years old) compared to older children (68% for children 12-17 years old; Monthly Outcome Survey, December 2022). We updated the discussion guide to discuss parents’ experiences with the COVID-19 pandemic, perceptions and awareness of COVID-19 vaccines for children, information needs, potential motivators and barriers for COVID-19 vaccination for their children, and COVID-19 vaccination intentions for their children in that age group. Additionally, we have included a section on communication approaches (e.g., message and concept testing and comparison) to understand what ideas resonate best with this audience with regard to persuading them to get their child vaccinated.

The number of focus groups and number of participants is unchanged—the study will conduct 18 focus groups comprised of 4-6 participants per group with a variety of audiences as summarized in the table below. As in our initial submission, we propose to conduct focus groups with general population adults, Black/African American adults and Hispanic/Latinx adults. However, we now propose to also conduct focus groups segmented by when participants plan to vaccinate their children (within the next six months vs. will wait more than six months). Recruitment screeners are revised to reflect the updated target populations.

Approval of these changes allows the program to conduct a study consistent with the current environment in order to secure actionable insights to inform the ongoing HHS ASPA COVID-19 Public Education Campaign.

	Will vaccinate child within 6 months	Will wait over 6 months to vaccinate child	Screening Notes
General Population	3	4	Mix of race/ethnicity, gender, political ideology, socioeconomic status (SES), geographic area
Latino/Hispanic	3	3	Mix of gender, political ideology, SES, geographic area; Four groups in English, two groups in Spanish
Black/African American	2	3	Mix of gender, political ideology, SES, geographic area
TOTAL	8	10