Addressing Vaccine Acceptance in Carceral Settings Through Community Engagement

The goal of this study is to reduce morbidity and mortality from COVID-19 amongst people who are detained in and work in correctional facilities. The overall objective is to identify feasible and effective interventions to improve vaccine uptake in correctional facilities and study the effectiveness of these interventions through rapid cycle, cluster randomized trials in the Pennsylvania prison system.

Aim 1: To identify correctional system strategies to address COVID-19 and influenza vaccine acceptance amongst incarcerated people and correctional staff. Aim 2: To select feasible strategies for a statewide correctional system at the patient-, provider-, practice- and prison-level to address COVID-19 and influenza vaccine uptake through a community engaged research approach. Aim 3: To compare the effectiveness of interventions to address COVID-19 and influenza vaccine acceptance using a rapid cycle cluster randomized trial design in prison. This study is highly innovative in its application of rapid cycle, cluster randomized trials in correctional systems to test the effectiveness of strategies identified using a community based participatory research approach. The results will serve as an evidence base for improving vaccine uptake that can be scaled nationally and adapted for other populations affected by the criminal legal system.