A summary of presentations from the weekly Summit partner webinars
October 6, 2022 – The latest Summit Summary
- National Conference for Immunization Coalitions and Partnerships (NCICP) Update – L.J Tan (Immunize.org) and Susan Farrell (HHS)
- Announcements
National Conference for Immunization Coalitions and Partnerships (NCICP) Update – L.J Tan (Immunize.org) and Susan Farrell (HHS)
L.J Tan, MS, PhD, Chief Strategy Officer, Immunize.org, Co-Chair, NAIIS, and Susan Farrell, Public Health Advisor, Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Assistant Secretary of Health, gave an update on the National Conference for Immunization Coalitions and Partnerships (NCICP).
L.J Tan
The NCICP was one of the first large public immunization conferences since the COVID-19 pandemic started. This event was co-sponsored by Immunize.org and Voices for Vaccines and was held at the Radisson Blu Mall of America in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota. The focus of the meeting was sustainability, community engagement, and policy and advocacy. There were 380 registered participants (significantly more than expected), half of whom were new to immunization advocacy.
A large number of new advocates brings in fresh ideas, however, that also means that there has been a lot of turnover in public health immunization staff. One big thing to celebrate is the successes of public health advocates and coalitions over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, they also faced challenges. This was reflected in a panel session moderated by Serese Marotta, director of advocacy and education at Vaccinate Your Family, featuring a discussion about burnout between Lynn Bahta, a voting member of ACIP, and Michael Leiter, PhD, Honorary Professor of Organisational Psychology at Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia
Another plenary session featured a movie titled “A Shot in the Arm,” directed by Oscar-nominated director, Scott Kennedy. The hope is that this movie will find its way to policymakers because there is a lot of content relevant to policy and advocacy. This movie would be great to get into the hands of those making decisions about public health and vaccinations.
American investigative journalist for NBC, Brandy Zadrozny, ran a plenary session called “Tiffany Dover and Other Misinformation.” Tiffany Dover was a nurse who received her COVID-19 vaccine on video to educate on, and advocate for, COVID-19 vaccinations. While getting her vaccination, Tiffany had a syncope episode she fainted. She became a focal point for the antivaccine movement with those behind it saying that the CDC, hospital systems, and public health organizations were covering up her death. This brought up some great discussion points about the changing field of vaccine hesitancy and confidence.
One of the highlights from the conference was a plenary session with a conversation about how to handle the next pandemic between Anne Schuchat and Nancy Messonnier, formerly of CDC, moderated by Amy Pisani of Vaccinate Your Family. Both Anne and Nancy were intimately involved in the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and went back and forth about the necessity of trying to understand how to deal with the next pandemic. They went into how politics and public health can no longer be considered independent of each other and about how to communicate the risk of COVID-19 disease and the benefits of vaccination. Different agencies handled the pandemic differently and they stressed how coordination between agencies needs to continue and relationships need to be built between public health and the government.
The National Network of Immunization Coalitions now has a strong relationship with the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), particularly through the work of Synovia Moss who leads the Good Health Wins initiative, which is funded by CDC. NCNW has many boots on the ground who are engaged in advocacy in their states. The plenary for the closing of the conference was delivered by Janice Mathis, director of NCNW. This was a wonderful acknowledgment of the hard work everyone has been ongoing regarding equity issues with immunizations. Her closing noted the equity issues that were exposed in the vulnerable COVID-19 immunization infrastructure and showed how the community response helped ensure that equity in COVID-19 vaccines could be accomplished. The rates that have gone up in minority communities is something to be celebrated. There is a lot we can learn from this and that can be shared at the NAIIS in-person meeting.
We are working toward putting up some of the slide presentations from this conference and we plan to send a link to the Summit so that you can see these presentations. Many of the presentations had best practices that would translate well to adult and influenza vaccines.
We have so many great coalitions working at the state level if you would like to reach out to a coalition, we are here to help you do that.
Susan Farrell
This conference was very refreshing and about people coming together. There were people who had never met in person and people who hadn’t seen each other in a long time. The comradery of the shared experience could be felt.
Community engagement
Annette Meeks is a conservative working in the Minnesota legislature. She had many suggestions on how to work with the legislature in simple ways and by building one-on-one relationships.
Julissa Soto won the Immunization Equity Award. She was an illegal immigrant and is now a U.S. citizen. During her acceptance speech, she explained what it was like to come to the United States in the trunk of a car and in doing so, told herself that she would make something of herself (and she did)! Her big contribution to immunization advocacy is “Vaccine Sundays,” where she has so far brought in 15,000 people to get vaccinated.
Nathan Chomilo and the Hennipin Health System in Minnesota talked about how Minnesota is using the social vulnerability index to target distribution.
Blima Marchs, an orthodox Jew, and nurse practitioner from Brooklyn was once against vaccinations but is now an advocate for vaccinations. She broke down what vaccination is like in her community, described her community, and how to reach her community. One of her main points is vaccine access for families with many children, as many orthodox Jewish families do.
Questions
Q: Do you have an idea when next year’s conference will be held?
L.J Tan: Typically, Summit meetings are held annually in person in the month of May, generally the week after Mother’s Day. The tentative dates are May 16–18, 2023. The Summit works closely with the CDC, and the CDC is still in the process of trying to decide whether there will be a National Immunization Conference (NIC) in 2023. If there is an in-person NIC, the summit will align the in-person meeting with the NIC. Right now, there has not been a notification from CDC regarding the status of NIC for 2023, so the Summit in-person meeting will carry on as planned. Should there be a NIC, the Summit will move to coincide with the NIC.
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Announcements
- If you have not registered for the summit in-person meeting, please do so. The 2022 National Adult and Influenza Immunization Summit (NAIIS) will be held on November 2–3, 2022 at the Crowne Plaza Atlanta Perimeter at Ravinia in Atlanta, Georgia. While registration is free, once the meeting registration hits max capacity, registration will be closed. If you have registered and can’t make it, please let us know so that we can offer that spot to someone else. You need a password to register. For the password and for more information and to register visit izsummitpartners.org/2022-naiis-adult.
- The Summit released Get Adults’ Vaccinations Back on Track, a 2-page clinician tip sheet on new CDC recommendations and tools to help adults catch up on needed vaccinations. NAIIS is a large coalition of public and private organizations dedicated to increasing immunization rates, co-led by Immunize.org, CDC, and the Health and Human Services Office of Infectious Disease and HIV/AIDS Policy.
- If you are not getting the emails from Mailchimp, please add “NAIIS” at info@izsummitpartners.org to your contact list. Also, make sure that our email address isn’t blocked or going to spam/junk. The last thing you may need to do is reach out to your organization’s IT department to determine if there is an internal firewall that might be blocking our Mailchimp emails.
