Best practices for community-led strategies to boost vaccine confidence: A case study in Parc-Extension, Québec

The most racially diverse and socio-economically disadvantaged neighbourhoods in Canada, primarily those concentrated in large urban areas such as Parc Extension in Montreal, Quebec experience have been vaccinated at lower rates despite availability. The lower vaccination rate among residents in Parc Extension is attributable to vaccine hesitancy, characterized by uncertainty and ambivalence about vaccination, a legitimate viewpoint, underscoring the failure or lack of an effective public health system. In response, new and reimagined vaccine interventions that are community-led, culturally-relevant, and place-based have been developed in Parc Extension to successfully increase vaccine confidence and uptake. There is a clear need for better quality studies on the use of community-led vaccination strategies in promoting confidence, particularly in low income and diverse regions in Canada, where research capacities are limited. This proposed community-based research has the fundamental goal of producing qualitative evidence guided by grounded theory using Parc Extension, Quebec as a case study in understanding dynamic community-led responses and developing a best practices implementation toolkit to address vaccine hesitancy. Semi-structured interviews will be conducted with diverse key stakeholders in Parc Extension to understand the best practices required to establish successful and effective community-led vaccine strategies. Data will be analyzed using open-coding and synthesized member-checking to develop a best practices toolkit to implement sustained effective community-led strategies to achieve vaccine confidence among low income and racialized communities in Canada.