Strategy
The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) identified the importance of creatively addressing the consistent flow of vaccine misinformation, which has led to vaccine hesitancy. MDH created and piloted a vaccine advocate training, modeled on Voices for Vaccines’ Trusted Messenger training grounded in motivational interviewing, in October 2024. The training was very well received, and MDH has since implemented this type of training with the Minnesota Department of Education’s School Cultural Liaisons and Help Me Grow Parent Navigators.
Challenge
MDH has continued to see gaps in childhood immunization rates due to the COVID-19 pandemic. There have been persistent disparities among communities, particularly with Minnesota’s MMR vaccine coverage rates. In the Somali communities, only 24% of 2-year-olds are up to date on their MMR vaccine. Additionally, there is growing mistrust of institutions and pervasive mis – and disinformation about vaccines among social networks. Adding to that, there are attacks on immunization at the federal level and weakening of public health infrastructure.
Solution
Based on experience with the Family Home Visiting Program (FHV), MDH decided to develop a training focused on having conversations about vaccines. MDH acknowledged that many home visitors probably lacked this training and did not feel comfortable bringing up or talking about vaccines. As a result, MDH created and piloted vaccine advocate training, modeled on Voices for Vaccines’ Trusted Messenger training grounded in motivational interviewing, in October 2024. This first training was four parts, done over the course of a month in one-hour virtual sessions. The training was very well received, and it has also been implemented with the Minnesota Department of Education’s School Cultural Liaisons and Help Me Grow Parent Navigators.
The training is tailored to each audience, but the general outline is a basic overview of vaccines and how they work. The training emphasizes vaccine safety, monitoring, vaccine hesitancy, the 4 As model for approaching vaccine conversations, and example scenarios. The training always includes sharing reliable resources that vaccine advocates can share with families. MDH recently enhanced its website by adding a convenient place to go for all the common vaccine questions and concerns. In addition, they developed a short vaccine advocate handout that trainees can take with them, which provides support as they go out and begin advocacy work. This training is for any partner who works with parents or families and could encounter a conversation about vaccines. The focus in on partners who reach communities with the greatest immunization gaps, like the Somali community.
The goal of the vaccine advocate training is to leverage partners who already have trusted relationships with parents and families to feel more comfortable navigating conversations about immunizations when they arise. The objectives are to summarize vaccine basics, address common vaccine concerns, and identify where to find reliable vaccine resources. The first training took place over the month of October 2024. The second trainings were on February 25 and March 11, 2025. The third training was on August 4, 2025. Future training is planned for August 19, 2025, and November 2025.
For the FHV program, each training required 23 hours of meetings (including with FHV staff and internal immunization program meetings), 35 hours of work time across five immunization program staff, and four hours of live training. For the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE), each training involved 22 hours of meetings (including with MDE staff, liaisons, and internal immunization program meetings), 40 hours of work time across five staff (including one MDE staff), and three hours of live training.
For the Help Me Grow (HMG) program, each training involved three hours of meetings (including HMG staff and internal immunization program meetings), 15 hours of work time across two staff, and one hour of live training. The only cost was for full-time employees for the MDH staff developing the training and delivering the training. Staff were primarily funded by core immunization dollars.
Many partners have been involved in the development and delivery of the training, including Minnesota’s FHV program, the Department of Education staff and their school cultural liaisons, and HMG staff and their parent navigators. MDH has also connected with the Community Health Worker Alliance and local health plan staff for future trainings. The partners are integral for the pre-training meetings to help MDH understand the audience and tailor the content. They have also helped with scheduling, inviting appropriate people, advertising, and wrapping up the trainings. The program started on October 2, 2024, and is ongoing.
Outcome
MDH believes that this program has been very successful so far. It gives an opportunity to connect with a wide variety of partners who do work related to immunizations, and it is pushing the boundaries of who MDH traditionally works with. There has been such a positive reception to the trainings, and the survey results reflect positive feedback. This training program is innovative because of its versatility and ability to be tailored to a variety of partners. It can be for anyone who wants to be a vaccine advocate.
Building trusted vaccine messengers is more important than ever due to uncertain program funding and limited capacity in the space of vaccine education. This project is building a deeper bench of vaccine advocates throughout the various networks families navigate. MDH has future trainings planned with internal MDH infectious disease staff, community health workers, Head Start staff, and a group comprising of public health nurses, care coordinators, community health workers, doulas, and FHVs.