Making People Feel Heard: Embedding Systematic Social Listening in National Vaccination Programs

Abstract summarising a Preformed Panel Session at the 2022 International SBCC Summit in Morocco (see Related Summaries below for presentations that formed part of this panel):

"Gross inequities in COVID-19 vaccine access have been paralleled by inequities in access to reliable information. Effective social listening can enable understanding of people's concerns and information needs and track misinformation in real time. However, social listening is often equated with social media listening. With half the world digitally disenfranchised, this can only exacerbate data and information inequities.

UNICEF [United Nations Children's Fund] has been facilitating vaccine social listening programs at global, regional and country levels which access both online and offline conversations. The Vaccination Demand Observatory (VDO), a global collaboration led by UNICEF, has been strengthening capacity in over 20 countries across 5 UNICEF regions. Early experience has highlighted: 

• disparate levels of organization and resourcing of current program; 
• a pivotal role for the social analyst and need for capacity strengthening across other functions; 
• the potential impact of targeted, evidence-based, context-driven vaccine messaging through digital channels.

Taking a dynamic approach this panel will collect and synthesize insights from participants on how to build and strengthen equitable and effective national health-focused social listening mechanisms. Participants will identify feasible and impactful actions to enable coordinated social listening to the public discourse on vaccines, including access to online and offline conversations and tight coupling of listening to RCCE through real-time actionable insights and recommendations. Primary outputs will be a refined and adaptable model for a national social listening mechanism, a recommended phased approach to integrating such a system into national routine health programming, and actionable insights to enhance current SBCC."