Strategies for Communicating with People Who Are Not Vaccinated to Build Confidence in COVID-19 Vaccines

New relevant information helps people rethink their choice to vaccinate. With the emergence of the new COVID-19 variants, there is a fresh opportunity to reach out to vaccine hesitant individuals. This is according to the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

NAS released resources on strategies for communicating with people who are not vaccinated to build confidence in COVID-19 vaccines. Social science research has shown that people tent to be consistent with their decisions and beliefs but by providing new information releases them from the previous choice. One can say to the vaccine-hesitant something like this: "This is something you could not have known at the time, but that you would want to take into account now, as any good decision maker like you would."

The new events or information that can be highlighted in the conversation may include:

• emergence of the more transmissible delta variant;
• increased numbers of people who have decided to become vaccinated;
• large and growing amount of safety data available;
• FDA's full approval of the Pfizer vaccine;
• the fact that COVID-19 now poses increased burdens of severe complications among people who are not vaccinated; and
• the growing evidence that vaccines provide significant protection against the most serious complications of COVID-19, including death.

NAS also encourages presenting the information in a way that will be personally relevant and salient such as use of real life stories instead of just presenting general statistics or percentages.