TY - JOUR AU - Cunningham-Erves, Jennifer AU - Brandt, Heather M AU - Sanderson, Maureen AU - Clarkson, Kristin AU - Lee, Omaran AU - Schlundt, David AU - Bonnet, Kemberlee AU - Davis, Jamaine PY - 2022 DA - 2022/7/28 TI - Development of a Theory-Based, Culturally Appropriate Message Library for Use in Interventions to Promote COVID-19 Vaccination Among African Americans: Formative Research JO - JMIR Form Res SP - e38781 VL - 6 IS - 7 KW - African American KW - Black American KW - Black KW - minority KW - ethnic KW - culturally sensitive KW - cultural sensitivity KW - inclusive KW - vulnerable KW - COVID-19 KW - vaccination KW - vaccine KW - health promotion KW - campaign KW - messaging KW - culturally appropriate KW - theory KW - adults KW - children KW - disparity KW - health belief model KW - community engagement KW - public engagement KW - public awareness KW - community-based KW - health information KW - health communication KW - health intervention KW - vulnerable population KW - community health KW - patient education AB - Background: Disparities in COVID-19 incidence, hospitalization, and mortality rates among African Americans suggest the need for targeted interventions. Use of targeted, theory-driven messages in behavioral and communication interventions could empower African Americans to engage in behaviors that prevent COVID-19. Objective: To address this need, we performed a formative study that aimed to develop and design a culturally appropriate, theory-based library of messages targeting concerns around COVID-19 vaccines that could be used in behavioral and communication interventions for African Americans. Methods: Message development occurred between January 2021 and February 2022. Initial messages were designed by a multidisciplinary team of researchers, community leaders, and community members. Kreuter’s 5 strategies (ie, linguistic, peripheral, evidential, sociocultural, and constituent-involving strategies) were used to achieve cultural appropriateness. After forming a community-academic partnership, message development occurred in 4 phases: (1) adaptation of a message library using the literature, (2) review by 6 clinical and research experts for content validation, (3) input and review by a 6-member community advisory panel (CAP), and (4) message pretesting with African Americans via semistructured interviews in a qualitative study. Results: Themes from the semistructured interviews among 30 African Americans were as follows: (1) community reactions to the messages, (2) community questions and information needs, (3) suggestions for additional content, and (4) suggestions to improve comprehension, relevance, and trustworthiness. Feedback from the CAP, community members, and scientific experts was used by members of the community-academic partnership to iteratively update message content to maximize cultural appropriateness. The final message library had 18 message subsets for adults and 17 message subsets for parents and caregivers of children. These subsets were placed into 3 categories: (1) vaccine development, (2) vaccine safety, and (3) vaccine effectiveness. Conclusions: We used a 4-phase, systematic process using multiple community engagement approaches to create messages for African Americans to support interventions to improve COVID-19 vaccination rates among adults and children. The newly developed messages were deemed to be culturally appropriate according to experts and members of the African American community. Future research should evaluate the impact of these messages on COVID-19 vaccination rates among African Americans. SN - 2561-326X UR - https://formative.jmir.org/2022/7/e38781 UR - https://doi.org/10.2196/38781 UR - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35781223 DO - 10.2196/38781 ID - info:doi/10.2196/38781 ER -