Using Cultural Variance Framework to Promote Vaccine Confidence among African Americans: A Qualitative Content Analysis of “We Can Do This” COVID-19 Vaccine Campaign

Abstract

AbstractThe study examines ways the cultural variance framework (CVF) enhances vaccine confidence messaging among African American healthcare consumers concerning coronavirus. The main emphasis lies in the “We Can Do This” campaign, which employs CVF to develop tailored social media, advertising, and televised commercials to actively involve African Americans and advocate for the advantages of the coronavirus vaccine. This qualitative study seeks to fill a gap in health communication literature by investigating how CVF, as a sub-feature of audience-centered messaging, engages with African Americans, encouraging their active engagement in vaccine participation. The findings reveal that contextual specificity, cultural identity, and characteristic features of the CVF play a significant role in fostering vaccine confidence among African Americans using culturally tailored messaging. The study explicates conceptual implications for future interventions prioritizing African Americans regarding health disparities.KEYTERMS: African AmericanCOVID-19cultural variance frameworkhealth communicationvaccine confidence Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 African American refers to persons with Sub-Saharan African ancestral origins with Brown or Black complexion. The term Black or African Americans’ signifies a geographical origin of African descent with attempts to describe a cultural group (Agyemang et al., Citation2005).2 COVID-19 vaccination data may differ upon the presentation of new data as the pandemic continues at the time of manuscript development.3 Health disparity refers as a health difference, based on one or more health outcomes characterized by a pattern of poorer health outcomes, indicated by the overall rate of disease incidence, prevalence, morbidity, mortality, or survival in the population as compared to the health status of the general population (Danka-Mullan et al., Citation2021).Additional informationFundingThe authors declare that no funds, grants, or other support were received during the preparation of this manuscript.