Nationwide “Nurses Make Change Happen” campaign empowers nurses with tools to reduce vaccine hesitancy and increase vaccinations in their communities
National Nurse-Led Care Consortium (NNCC), a subsidiary of Public Health Management Corporation (PHMC), announced today the official rollout of “Nurses Make Change Happen.” This national media campaign supports nurses across the country with the tools, resources, and information needed to increase vaccine confidence and vaccination rates. The campaign is part of a five-year cooperative agreement with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to promote vaccine confidence among nurses and the communities served by nurses.
Nurses play a critical role in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. The campaign includes a comprehensive toolkit. This toolkit includes fact sheets and Q&As addressing common vaccine questions, suggestions for hosting community information events, and strategies to help patients overcome barriers to vaccine appointments, such as transportation or access to the internet.
The toolkit is enhanced by a NNCC-led social media campaign, which provides shareable social media content and infographics for nurses to engage with their communities. The social media resources provide facts on the COVID-19 vaccine, address common vaccine misconceptions and misinformation and strategies to share vaccination stories. Additionally, this campaign raises awareness of the critical roles nurses have played throughout history and continue to play in public health pandemics. The toolkit amplifies the voice of nurses by featuring video stories of everyday nurse champions from across the country.
“As many communities across the country face rising COVID-19 cases and the impact of the Delta variant on the unvaccinated, NNCC’s mission is to support nurses as frontline caregivers with the essential resources they need to respond to the pandemic,” said Kristine Gonnella, Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives at NNCC. “We trust the campaign and toolkit provide nurses valuable resources to engage with patients on important conversations to support public health. Thanks to the CDC, we invite nurses across the country to follow in the footsteps of nurses before them and be a part of history.”
In addition to the campaign rollout, NNCC also recently launched several initiatives as part of the vaccine confidence project. The Nurse-Led Forum for Vaccine Confidence creates a space for open, honest discussion through nurse-led webinars that explore questions around vaccine hesitancy and share strategies for building confidence in COVID-19 vaccines. NNCC is also convening the Vaccine Confidence Advisory Committee (VCAC), which includes 20 members from across nursing roles, health care settings, and populations served to use their collective knowledge of public health and safety net health care to lift up the voices of under-represented communities and raise awareness of barriers to vaccine access. In partnership with the CDC and the Pennsylvania Action Coalition, NNCC also created a six-part podcast series to help nurses become vaccine ambassadors.
For more information about the campaign, resources, training, and the toolkit, please visit https://nurseledcare.phmc.org/news-resources/covid-vaccine-toolkit.html. For more information on NNCC, visit https://nurseledcare.phmc.org/.
This project was funded in part by a cooperative agreement with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (grant number NU50CK000580). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The contents of this resource center do not necessarily represent the policy of CDC or HHS and should not be considered an endorsement by the Federal Government.
About PHMC
Public Health Management Corporation (PHMC) is a nonprofit public health institute that creates and sustains healthier communities. PHMC uses best practices and evidence-based guidelines to improve community health through direct service, partnership, innovation, policy, research, technical assistance and a prepared workforce. PHMC has served the region since 1972. For more information on PHMC, visit www.phmc.org.
About NNCC
The National Nurse-Led Care Consortium (NNCC), a subsidiary of Public Health Management Corporation, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that advocates for nurses and serves as an incubator for innovative, replicable, community-based health programs. The organization’s mission is to advance nurse-led health care through policy, consultation, and programs to reduce health disparities and meet people’s primary care and wellness needs. As part of this mission, NNCC works with organizations around the country to build healthy communities through community-based programs that help people lead healthier and safer lives. NNCC was officially incorporated in 2001 after being founded in the early 1990s by a group of advanced practice nurses in Philadelphia. From there, NNCC has grown into a national organization representing more than 250 nurse-managed clinics, serving more than three million patients across the country. For more information, visit nurseledcare.org.
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