The Polish community in Scotland experiences barriers to accessing reliable information on vaccinations in their mother tongue, which makes them more prone to manipulation by the fake news spreading in social media.
Given the amount of misinformation in the Polish social media regarding the COVID-19 vaccine and apparently, Poland being the leader in spreading the vaccination myths, Feniks decided to counterpart it with the awareness-raising campaign on informed consent. The project started in May and lasted until the end of August 2021
#Wiedzaiwybór (Knowledge & choice) campaign aimed to provide reliable and verified information to Poles who are undecided about whether they should and want to take the vaccine when it becomes available to them.
Background
Low vaccine uptake has been seen amongst migrants – notably in the Polish group who have arrived since 2004. In 2019 dr Dermot Gorman, a public health consultant in NHS Lothian, surveyed 13 Polish women (member of Feniks’s group of Polish mothers) with a specific focus on influenza and Human Papillomavirus vaccinations.
Key emergent themes were: a low trust in the national vaccination policy, in the vaccination providers (health professionals), and in the individual vaccines, as well as balancing the risk of disease, and language and communication.
What did we do?
- prepared a complete guide to the vaccination process in Polish available on feniks.org.uk and a database of useful and valid resources
- ran social media campaign (including Facebook and Instagram) reaching more than 30K Polish-speaking users sharing unbiased information on the vaccine
- organized 4 live online meetings with experts (doctors and scientists) addressing FAQ re Covid-19 vaccine (recordings available on Facebook page and Youtube)
Our efforts were focused on social media, as these are the biggest source of partially or completely false information about the vaccine.
Main findings and conclusions
- Polish vaccine hesitancy is nothing new, but Covid-19 made things worse and more evident
- The lack of choice of the vaccine is very discouraging and suspicious (cases of refusal due to a personal preference)
- Fear, disempowerment and strong emotions caused by the fuelling the hesitancy
- Delayed actions of the government reaching out to the ethnic minorities
- The AV influence inside the social bubbles (women, children and teenagers might be influenced by the heads of the families – there are cases of receiving the vaccine in secrecy)
- Late adopters (those who decided to wait and see) are a substantial number of people
- Some people have been already vaccinated in Poland (they are out of the system)
It is not possible to convince people with an established opinion about the harm of vaccines but those who are hesitant need more information:
- letters reminding about the possibility of vaccination without the necessity of registration (with addresses of drop-in clinics in the area)
- offers of an individual GP consultation
- an explanation why people can’t choose a vaccine
- a reminder of the right to an interpreter
- a list of benefits of vaccination (including travelling, consequences of long Covid-19 or being intubated and on a ventilator)
- listing of employee rights in case of absence at work due to side effects
- assurance that patients receive appropriate medical care in the event of severe side effects
- more information in Polish
- a more active approach to reach out to the Polish community to make them more familiar with the NHS
