Ancaster-born Harvard grad helps fight vaccine hesitancy among youth through peer-to-peer education
An Ancaster-born Harvard University graduate who spent the better part of 2020 working with a team of consultants providing pricing and distribution strategies for one of the COVID-19 vaccines is fighting vaccine hesitancy among youth through peer-to-peer education.
I realized that there was a large amount of vaccine hesitancy and large amount of fear in people around me, people that I went to school with, my neighbours, my family, people in my inner circle," said Cha Cha Yang, 23, a life sciences graduate and future medical-school student. Misinformation and lack of communication has been just a really big problem during the pandemic."
So, in March 2021, she launched Students for Herd Immunity to combat it.
More than 70 students from more than 30 schools - mostly middle and secondary - across North America, including a student at Hamilton's Hillfield Strathallan College, have participated in a five-week training to equip them with the knowledge and skills to disseminate information to their peers, whether it be in a classroom, club or sports team.
We're really trying to do this so we engage students, and we want to employ this peer-to-peer education system," she said. We want to make sure that we help them develop this lifelong understanding of vaccines that they can then take on with them."
Earlier this month, Canada approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for youth ages 12 to 17 - an age group that is impressionable," Yang said. Anti-vaccine content and COVID-19 misinformation is spread easily and often over social media, where 86 per cent of Ontario youth spend time daily, according to the Canadian Mental Health Association (CAMH).
Vaccine hesitancy can also be intergenerational - notions passed down from parents that are crystallized" in young people by the time they reach adolescence, she said.
Student ambassadors attend training sessions once a week for five weeks, gaining the knowledge and skills to pass along accurate, age-appropriate and culturally relevant information to their classrooms, clubs and communities.
In addition to training students, the organization helps host community town halls - the last attended by more than 300 people. It also works with more than 20 community partners - shelters, food banks, health clinics and schools - to distribute vaccine information sheets, which have been translated into 10 languages.
We are hoping this is able to bridge some of the linguistic barriers to health literacy, as well," Yang said.
Guided by a panel of medical and education professionals, the organization has reached more than 35,000 people to date.
Kate McCullough is a Hamilton-based reporter covering education at The Spectator. Reach her via email: kmccullough@thespec.com