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Moving at the Speed of Trust
- Thoughts and Feelings about Vaccination in Black Communities

The platform was created in partnership with The Federation of Black Canadians (FBC), a national, non-profit organization, driven by Black organizations across the country to advance the social, economic, political and cultural interests of Canadians of African descent, and Evenings and Weekends Consulting, a values-driven organization committed to achieving equity and justice – including, centrally, combatting anti-Black racism.

Cause

Vaccine hesitancy

Locations

Canada

Status

Online

Content

The Product

Moving at the Speed of Trust is an online engagement platform for learning and sharing about experiences with healthcare. The goal is to better understand the diversity of perspectives that exist in Black communities regarding vaccine hesitancy across the lifecourse.

Users will be able to explore topics relevant to Black communities’ priorities. The visual design incorporates depictions of Black lives, and the content focuses on Black experiences by specifying reasons why Black communities may distrust vaccines. The platform empowers users to share their experiences and concerns without collecting any personally identifiable information. Any information that is shared with us (through an optional survey) is kept entirely confidential.

An image of the 4 modules the user can select from to access information on the platform.

Our Rationale

The importance of this effort is manifold: Black people have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 and face other disparities in health outcomes with respect to respiratory and sexually transmitted infections. There is a lack of race-based data that can inform effective solutions, and health communications have traditionally not been tailored to the priorities of Black community members.

By distributing this platform we aim to get insights into:

  • The likelihood of sharing the health information we provide within the experience with their networks
  • Thoughts/feelings about different causes of vaccine hesitancy, e.g. distrust of government or vaccine development processes, systemic racism, messaging about the vaccines
  • Access to health information and barriers to receiving it 
  • Knowledge of sexually transmitted & blood borne infections, Influenza, and COVID-19’s impact on the Black community
  • Knowledge of the role of Black community members in vaccine development and healthcare excellence

This project is funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada. The aggregate data summaries and learnings from this platform will be shared with the funder and other interested health organizations to inform future health services.

A topic landing screen with a header that reads "Vaccines in the Black Community".A screenshot of a question presented in the Moving at the speed of trust experience reads: "When it comes to COVID-19 vaccines would you describe yourself as vaccine hesitant (even if you have received one of more COVID-19 vaccines)? 5 answer options are shown: Very much, somewhat, undecided, not very much, and not at all.

Get in touch!

If you anticipate this tool could benefit your community, and wish to learn more about how we can provide you with aggregate data insights for your specific audience, get in touch with us at bonjour@digitalpublicsquare.org or effie@digitalpublicsquare.org.

Digital Public Square would like to thank the Public Health Agency of Canada for their continued support in this work.

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