Better COVID-19 Vaccinations with Text Messages & Neighborhood Vaccine Ambassadors in Montgomery, Alabama - Estimated number of people to be served as a result of the award of this grant. 82,182With a Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) score of 0.8427, communities in Montgomery are at a high level of vulnerability. Since March 2020, the burden of COVID-19 on our community has been substantial ? 10,622 cases/100,000 person and 573 deaths in Montgomery County and 12,341 cases/100,000 person and 203 deaths in neighboring Elmore County. Given that everyday thousands of people commute in and out of the City of Montgomery, the success of any response to COVID-19 is contingent on a coordinated response with neighboring communities. We have created a regional partnership of adjacent counties and cities to implement a wide range of health literacy intervention strategies for COVID-19 mitigation measures. We have engaged Michael K. Paasche-Orlow, MD, MA, MPH, Editor-in-Chief HLRP: Health Literacy Research and Practice to provide guidance on the adaptation of culturally and linguistically appropriate interventions. Our planned health literacy interventions include text messages with short, to-the-point messages and links to videos and other resources; neighborhood-based vaccine ambassadors who will field questions about testing, social distancing, masking, vaccine safety and where to get vaccinated; and targeted educational opportunities to learn about health literacy for current healthcare providers and the prioritized population. Trenholm State Community College, a minority serving institution, will lead the quality improvement process and manage the independent program evaluation. The community-based organization Southeast Alabama Area Health Education Center will act as the primary outreach partner with a corps of trained and vaccinated community health workers. Our health literacy interventions and regional partnership will improve COVID-19 vaccination rates, reduce the incidence of COVID-19 cases, and improve rates of COVID-19 testing and contact-tracing.
