The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute has announced grants totaling $11 million in support of research to boost COVID-19 vaccination rates among long-term care workers.

Funding will support two efforts to study how to reduce high rates of vaccine hesitancy among workers in skilled nursing facilities and other long-term care settings for vulnerable populations. In both studies, long-term care workers are helping design and conduct the research. 

The first study, facilitated by a research team at Dartmouth College, will compare methods of increasing confidence in COVID-19 vaccines among long-term care workers, including virtual, group, dialogue-based webinars co-facilitated by peer leaders selected by the National Association of Health Care Assistants, and a website where participants can view and discuss curated social media content suggested by other direct care workers and focused on COVID-19 vaccine concerns and educational information. The second study, to be led by a research team based at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute, will compare three approaches to vaccine education materials.

"Assessing approaches for increasing COVID-19 vaccine confidence among long-term care workers is an urgent need as demonstrated by a November 2020 survey that found that only 45 percent of these individuals are willing to receive a COVID-19 vaccine immediately when it is available," said PCORI executive director Nakela L. Cook. "The evidence generated from these studies could help not only with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, but with other diseases as well. After all, flu, for example, kills tens of thousands of older adults every year, and greater understanding of the benefits of yearly flu vaccination could reduce deaths from that disease as well."

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