The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) partnered with the Center for Arts in Medicine and other arts and culture organizations to promote vaccine confidence and demand. This novel partnership aims to demonstrate how public health entities can create synergistic, equitable, culturally responsive, and sustainable partnerships and programs that engage artists as critical partners and trusted messengers in promoting vaccine confidence—for COVID-19 and beyond.
CDC’s partnership with the David J. Spencer CDC Museum, University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine, CDC Foundation, and two Atlanta-based arts organizations, Dashboard and Living Walls, has generated:
- CDC Foundation Funded 2.1 Million for Arts & Culture-based Projects
Engaging Arts and Culture to Build Vaccination Confidence
This Engaging the Arts to Build Vaccine Confidence Request for Proposals (RFP) sought applications from arts and culture organizations interested in improving vaccine confidence and acceptance through their chosen art form(s) in communities with low COVID vaccination rates. The CDC Foundation will provide grants up to $75,000 each to an estimated 30 organizations that have a proven track record of successfully creating impactful, educational work. Once selected, funded projects will be shared here.
Response Due Date: CLOSED
- CDC Field Guides for Engaging Arts and Culture for COVID-19 Vaccine Confidence
These CDC field guides aim to prepare Public Health professionals to establish partnerships and develop programming to improve COVID-19 confidence and uptake using arts and culture-based partnerships and strategies.
Field Guide #1: Quick Start Guide for Building Sustainable Partnerships
This evidence-based guide encourages public health professionals to recognize arts and culture as valuable and available resources in communities and to engage them as critical partners in promoting vaccine confidence and uptake. understand the value of partnering with arts and culture organizations to promote health behaviors, develop effective and durable partnerships for advancing vaccine confidence, implement more accessible, equitable, and responsive programs that reduce barriers to vaccine confidence and uptake.
Field Guide #2: Short Guide for Building Programs & Creative Campaigns
This evidence-based guide is designed to help public health professionals partner with local artists and culture-bearers to create culturally responsive and sustaining vaccine education materials and programs. Public health professionals have long utilized principles of communication, marketing, and entertainment in health communication programs. This guide adds arts and culture as key ingredients to power-up vaccine confidence campaigns.
- Vaccine Confidence Arts Response Repository
This is an open-access repository of recent or current projects, organizations and professionals using arts and culture-based approaches to promote COVID-19 vaccine confidence and demand. Designed for public health professionals, explore this repository to find promising practice examples and professional contacts for engaging arts and culture in public health vaccination efforts.
- EXPLORE the repository: Search this repository to find recent or current public health practice examples that use arts and culture-based approaches to increase COVID-19 vaccine confidence.
- ADD YOUR WORK to the repository: If you or your organization are using arts and culture-based approaches to promote COVID-19 vaccine confidence and uptake, we invite you to add your work to this open-access repository.
- WEBINAR | Trusted Messengers, Trusted Spaces: Engaging Arts and Culture for COVID-19 Vaccine Confidence in Your Community
In this 1-hour webinar, panelists collaborating on vaccine confidence and demand from the public health and arts and cultural sectors shared practice examples, strategies, and resources for building partnerships and programs that engage artists and culture-bearers. They discussed on how to create synergistic, equitable, culturally responsive, and sustainable partnerships and programs that engage artists as critical partners and trusted messengers in promoting vaccine confidence—for COVID-19 and beyond.
By the end of this webinar, attendees will be able to:
- Identify strategies and resources for engaging arts and culture to increase vaccine confidence.
- Identify strategies for overcoming common challenges to vaccine confidence through arts and culture-based health communication programs.
- Recognize partnerships and initiate programs for advancing vaccine confidence through more engaging, tailored, equitable, and culturally responsive and sustainable programming in their communities.
- Articulate the value of partnership among public health and local artists, culture-bearers, and arts and culture organizations to promote vaccine confidence.- CDC-Funded Pilot Project
To help build confidence in and increase demand for COVID-19 vaccination, the CDC partnered with the Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH) and two Atlanta-based arts organizations, Dashboard and Living Walls, on an innovative community initiative leveraging local artists as trusted vaccine messengers. This CDC-funded pilot project launched art installations and events throughout August in select neighborhoods in cities including Atlanta, Savannah, and Athens. Some of the events – which focus on communities disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 – featured pop-up vaccination sites, providing convenient opportunities to access COVID-19 vaccines.
Want the origin story? Read the College of the Arts press release for more information!
Contact Natalie Rella at nrella@arts.ufl.edu for further inquiries.