Project 822 | Improving vaccine uptake and enhance safety surveillance: randomised clinical trial of a digitally enabled, culturally sensitive intervention in primary care, with enhanced vaccine safety surveillance (IMPRESS)
Research Team
Lead Institution
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Funded amount
£1,370,168 -
Funding round
FR14
We are trying to understand how we can encourage adults who are reluctant to get vaccinated to get a vaccination.
We will use an app, which will give information about the benefits of vaccination in different languages, and allow vaccination appointment booking. We’re focusing on encouraging flu vaccination in people who are most likely to benefit. This includes people from underserved communities, and those who have pre-existing medical conditions. We will also explore side effects people have after they have had the flu vaccine.
Background
Vaccination rates are falling. Less than half of adults with existing medical conditions get vaccinated against flu. Reasons for this include the difficulty people have getting appointments, issues with trust, and language or cultural barriers.
Methods
This research builds on a simple system that was designed with patients. GPs sent a text message to patients who hadn’t had a flu jab. The patient then chose the language they preferred, accessed reliable information about the vaccination and could then book a vaccination appointment. This system was tested in in London. It resulted in more people having a flu jab.
We now want to test if this could work on a larger scale across England. After testing and improving the system in 4 GP practices, we will invite 16 more practices in Manchester, London, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire to take part. We will focus on communities where there is a low uptake of vaccinations. 2,000 patients from each GP practice will be invited to take part. Half of the patients will be selected by chance to use our app and the other half will not be invited to do this.
For patients that use the app, we will ask if they could complete a questionnaire to help us understand more about the safety of the influenza vaccine.
Working with people, and sharing learning. People from areas with low vaccination rates were involved from the beginning and will continue to co-design with us throughout the study. Together we will share our results with the NHS and government leaders so that vaccination policy can be improved.
