In the early summer of 2021 Brighton and Hove City Council identified a need for the mobile vaccination unit sessions across the city to be more welcoming for people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities including visitors, migrants, and refugees.
Peer education is a tried and tested approach to health promotion where community members encourage healthy behaviour amongst their peers. TDC Peer Educators would be people representative of those communities, who could both welcome others attending for the vaccine and provide insight the mobile vaccine units could use to improve their accessibility.
TDC recruited a total of eight peer educators, a diverse mix of newly arrived refugees and long-term Brighton and Hove residents. Between them they speak a wide variety of languages, including Arabic, Farsi, Turkish, Hindi, Bengali and Kurdish. TDC's Peer Educators increased vaccine uptake at approximately three mobile vaccination sites per week.
The program reached a total of 2,935 people through our community outreach programme including 856 through closed social media groups (e.g. WhatsApp), 1,880 through flyers given out and 197 through conversations in community groups and out in the wider community
We also distributed 78 posters in locations frequented by people from ethnically diverse communities, including mosques, churches, shops and cafes.
Our peer educators project ran for one year in total, supporting the wide roll out of the Covid vaccine as it became available.
"I always tried to do a friendly and comfortable site for our clients that helps everyone who is stressed about getting a vaccine feel relaxed and at ease. We had many clients from different countries with different cultures and languages and this was a challenge. Since I speak fluently Arabic and Farsi and English, my language skills have been useful for people."
TDC Peer Educator
"Mo is always updating his knowledge by asking me if there are any further vaccination changes. When performing translation services Mo is sensitive in his nature to the patients and would only ask appropriate questions. He is able to recognise when the public needs more information than he is able to give, where he should then refer to myself or another senior member of staff. "
Andrew, Nurse Vaccinator
