Adults Get Vaccinated Too!: Comic and Poster

"When migrant workers do not speak English or read their native language, pictographic materials are a necessary and effective tool for clinicians and health care providers to ensure public health messages are communicated."



Illnesses like tetanus, meningitis, COVID-19, and the flu can be prevented, or their severity can be greatly reduced, by making vaccines more accessible to migrant farmworkers and by helping to inform them of the lifesaving benefits of vaccination. Yet farmworkers face barriers to care, such as clinic inaccessibility, and limited health literacy. During Farmworker Awareness Week 2024, the Migrant Clinicians Network (MCN) released two culturally contextual Spanish- and English-language resources  to help community health workers/promotores (CHW/Ps) in the field talk with male farmworkers about the benefits of preventative care and the schedule of vaccinations a worker might need. The comic and calendar can serve as a tool for community health centres, clinicians, CHW/Ps, and immigrant and migrant communities.



According to MCN, Latino populations have some of the lowest vaccination rates compared to other races/ethnicities residing in the United States (US). A 2020 study found that Latino adults were 30% less likely to have received the influenza, hepatitis, and pneumonia vaccines compared to non-Latino whites. Given that in 2019, 97% of all H2-A visa holders (migrant agricultural workers) were male, MCN approached development of the comic and calendar resource with the Spanish-speaking male migrant farmworker audience in mind, but both materials are also available in English.



The resources include:

• A comic book, desinged to be a colourful educational tool. Featuring what is meant to be an entertaining and easy-to-understand storyline, it follows two farmworkers in the field discussing the importance of protecting yourself from disease, the symptoms of preventable illnesses, and the benefits farmworkers can expect from getting needed vaccinations. It also clarifies when and where doses of a specific vaccine need to be taken. The goal is to help readers learn, in a simple and natural way, the importance of getting vaccinated during adulthood.
• A poster that gives low-literacy, easy-to-read information on vaccines and some information on why adults need immunisations, too. Available in high resolution to download and print, the poster was initially developed with input from focus groups conducted in Mexico in 2006 among indigenous communities that migrate to the US for work. The original version was produced in Spanish only with US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) funds; over the years, it has been updated to include new concerns, like COVID-19, and is now available in English.

These materials were made possible with funding from the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC).