Co-Creating Vaccine Confidence: An Anishinabe Theatre-based Approach to Strengthen Indigenous Youth and Young Adult Vaccination Support

A collaborative approach between First Nations communities and the local health care system led to the district of Manitoulin having the highest rate of COVID-19 vaccination uptake in Ontario. But even here, First Nations youth (12 to 18 ) and young adults (19-35) are not highly vaccinated with rates much lower than the middle to older adults categories. We propose to use an interprofessional team of Indigenous performance artists, community, cultural and health leaders who will collaborate with academics medicine, public health approach to better understand this relatively low vaccine uptake among First Nations youth and young adults. Your team consists of an acclaimed Anishinabe Theatre Group, First Nations community leaders, Local COVID-19 Response Planners, Pubic HElath Units, and their collaborative network of First Nations communities in North Eastern Ontario. We will use survey research as well as theatre-based engagement sessions to better understand the lived experience of the pandemic from the perspective of young Indigenous people in our study region, their perspectives, including knowledge, attitude, and acceptance of COVID-19 vaccines. In the next phase of the research, we will build on our learning and co-create, implement and evaluate art and culturally-based intervention to dialogue, educate and promote COVID-19 vaccines. The ultimate goal is to create an online learning resource to build scientific, civic, and media literacy based on Indigenous arts, knowledge, and social sciences.