Expanding community-academic collaborations to improve COVID-19 vaccination: A rural-focused COVID-19 vaccination campaign

Background: Rural populations in the USA demonstrate a high degree of vaccine hesitancy, particularly surrounding COVID-19 vaccines. Objectives: Following the successful implementation of a COVID-19 vaccination campaign with a rural-based health system in New York state, the goal of this project was to develop a large community–academic partnership with multiple rural-based community organisations to implement an additional COVID-19 vaccination campaign tailored to rural audiences. Methods: Campaign materials were created and refined with several collaborators across multiple rural-based hospitals, health centres and community organisations. Campaign effectiveness was examined through an analysis of New York state vaccination data. Lessons learned: This project shows that larger community–academic partnerships involving multiple organisations can be achieved and utilised to address complex public health issues such as vaccine hesitancy. Conclusions: Larger and longer-term community–academic partnerships can be leveraged to combat a wide range of public health issues and enable a personalised focus on specific communities.