Vaccine Confidence Project Forms Alliance for Advancing Health Online

Facebook committed $20 million to multiyear initiative the Alliance for Advancing Health Online, which is being spearheaded by the Vaccine Confidence Project at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine with the help of several partner companies and organizations. Other partners in the initiative include the Bay Area Global Health Alliance, the CDC Foundation, the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, Merck (which also committed $20 million), Sabin Vaccine Institute, the World Bank and the World Health Organization. The Alliance for Advancing Health Online was formed to advance public understanding of how social media and behavioral sciences can be leveraged to improve the health of communities around the world, and it will kick off its activity by establishing the Vaccine Confidence Fund, an independent fund to support research on how social media and online platforms can best support confidence in and access to Covid-19 vaccines around the world, as well as routine immunizations impacted by the pandemic. Grants will be provided to research and organizations exploring how to best use behavioral science, social media and digital platforms to build confidence in and access to vaccines, with the aim of producing timely practical applications focused on reaching historically underserved communities and those communities particularly at risk from the current pandemic. Researchers interested in participating can apply here. All findings from this research will be shared “quickly, broadly and publicly,” the Vaccine Confidence Project said, adding that Facebook is awarding grants to the Bay Area Global Health Alliance and the Sabin Vaccine Institute to facilitate a series of community discussions over the coming months. Facebook head of health Kang-Xing Jin said in a statement, “By bringing together public- and private-sector partners, we hope the Alliance will give us the ability to have a lasting impact on improving health behavior by leveraging social media and other digital technology. Together with partners, we’re seeing some promising results from our health work, which underscores the opportunity of the Alliance to better understand what’s working so that it can be replicated and scaled.” Vaccine Confidence Project head Heidi Larson added, “Social media is a powerful, constantly evolving tool that is shaping opinions and behaviors across the globe. The Alliance will help us build a deeper understanding of the dynamics of health communication online and how the global community can use social media to improve health.” And WHO team lead, digital channels Andy Pattison said, "The Alliance for Advancing Health Online and the new Vaccine Confidence Fund are important steps forward in leveraging social media for health impact at scale. A recent collaboration between WHO and Facebook demonstrated what this can achieve. WHO’s Science Behind Vaccines campaign ran globally, resonating most among Spanish- and Chinese-speaking audiences, who expressed an increased willingness to get the Covid-19 vaccine by 2.8 and 2.9 percentage points, respectively, across more than 50 million people."