Loading ...With Help From Bill Gates, Big Pharma and Facebook, CDC Funds Initiative to Help Minority Communities Hire ‘Influencers’ to Push Vaccines
The CDC’s Partnering for Vaccine Equity Program provides a toolkit for communities that helps them find and pay social media influencers to increase vaccine uptake in ethnic and racial minority communities.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in partnership with the CDC Foundation, funded a toolkit to train community-based organizations on how to hire influencers to combat “vaccine myths” in communities of color. The CDC Foundation’s donor list includes the World Health Organization, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and vaccine makers including Pfizer, Merck and Johnson & Johnson.
The toolkit, first rolled out in 2022, is part of a suite of resources created by the CDC’s Partnering for Vaccine Equity Program (P4VE), which targets ethnic and racial minority communities to increase vaccine uptake by funding “partnerships” with the CDC.
The guide suggests targeting mid-level influencers — those who aren’t overly famous and who are preferably “self-made” — because they’re often seen as more relatable and trusted than large brands or celebrities on social media. These influencers can effectively act as messengers with a wide reach to promote vaccination in racial and ethnic minority communities.