I'm not Throwing Away My Shot: Increasing Covid-19 Vaccine Confidence and Decreasing Disinformation within Campus Communities through Student Advocacy

For the past two years, COVID-19 has held the world's attention. It's been challenging to get the world's citizens to reach herd immunity due to a lack of vaccine confidence. Although vaccines have been a very successful part of public health in recent and past decades, there has been much debate about the COVID-19 vaccine. Strategies must be implemented to address vaccine confidence and decrease disinformation as this can be extremely helpful in preventing infections and reducing the likelihood of transmission. Student advocacy may be helpful in restoring trust within the campus community. The study used a cross-sectional, descriptive design. The non-random sample included 85 students, faculty, and staff on the campus of a university in a southeastern state. Participants were recruited via flyers, at COVID-19 campus events, and by word of mouth. The Center for Control and Disease Prevention (CDC) Vaccine Confidence Survey Question Bank was used to measure vaccine confidence at baseline. The intervention consisted of exposing the campus community to factual COVID-19 through educational flyers, town hall meetings, TikTok® and other social media platforms. Upon completion of the study, the grant team created a video of their experiences with the vaccine, which was streamed to the campus community. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, frequencies and independent t-tests. Participants' ages ranged from 20-55 (M = 30;SD = 12.1), were mostly female (64.7%), and white (52.9%). More than three-fourths of the samples (76.4%) were students. Only 17.4% of the sample had a previous diagnosis of COVID-19. Nurses and local health officials were the most trusted sources of vaccine information. Due to being a state institution, we were not at liberty to discuss the vaccination status of the participants. However, many felt that people at their work or school (58.9%) or family or friends (64.7%) would not get the vaccine. The findings of this study support the need for innovative strategies to deliver factual COVID-19 vaccine information to the campus community. Most of the participants did practice social distancing and other preventative behaviors, but more than half felt that they had received inaccurate information about the vaccine or were not sure where to receive accurate information from. There is no single intervention to restore campus community confidence, but student advocacy was helpful in starting a discussion about COVID-19 vaccines and collecting necessary data to determine support for effective strategies.

Identifying Opportunities for Collective Action Around Community Nutrition Programming Through Participatory Systems Science

Background Immigrant communities have higher nutrition-related health disparities, exacerbated by food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Objective To apply principles of group model building (GMB), a participatory systems science approach, to identify barriers and opportunities for collective impact around nutrition programming in immigrant communities in an urban environment during and after the pandemic. Study Design, Setting, Participants We convened four in-person sessions in November 2021 that drew from GMB practice with 10 community partners organized around their program domains/goals: community gardening;nutrition education;community-supported agriculture;and future planning for food-related programming. Participants were prompted to collaboratively identify programmatic goals, challenges, and potential mitigating actions. Measurable Outcome/Analysis We generated a causal loop diagram (CLD) – a visual representation of hypothesized causal relationships between variables and feedback structures within a system – for each program domain. CLDs were validated and refined with community stakeholder input. We then synthesized all four CLDs into one comprehensive model which were shared with all community stakeholders during a plenary discussion session, which aided in identifying opportunities for collective action. Results Multilevel barriers emerged, including ethnocentric food policies that center the diets and practices of White Americans thereby inhibiting culturally tailored food guidelines and funding for culturally appropriate nutrition education;the shortage of culturally tailored nutrition education in communities as a missed opportunity for fostering pride in immigrant food culture and sustainment of traditional food practices;and limited access to/procurement of traditional ethnic produce in food assistance programs serving disadvantaged immigrant communities, increasing the likelihood of food waste and worsening food insecurity. Conclusions Emergent themes coalesced around the need to embed cultural tailoring into all levels of the food system, which would require coordinated actions around food policy advocacy, collectively identifying funding for culturally tailored community education and gardening, and community-academic research to support these actions. Funding NIH

Assessing changes in the food retail environment during the COVID-19 pandemic: opportunities, challenges, and lessons learned.

BACKGROUND: COVID-19 mitigation strategies have had an untold effect on food retail stores and restaurants. Early evidence from New York City (NYC) indicated that these strategies, among decreased travel from China and increased fears of viral transmission and xenophobia, were leading to mass closures of businesses in Manhattan's Chinatown. The constantly evolving COVID -19 crisis has caused research design and methodology to fundamentally shift, requiring adaptable strategies to address emerging and existing public health problems such as food security that may result from closures of food outlets. OBJECTIVE: We describe innovative approaches used to evaluate changes to the food retail environment amidst the constraints of the pandemic in an urban center heavily burdened by COVID-19. Included are challenges faced, lessons learned and future opportunities. METHODS: First, we identified six diverse neighborhoods in NYC: two lower-resourced, two higher-resourced, and two Chinese ethnic enclaves. We then developed a census of food outlets in these six neighborhoods using state and local licensing databases. To ascertain the status (open vs. closed) of outlets pre-pandemic, we employed a manual web-scraping technique. We used a similar method to determine the status of outlets during the pandemic. Two independent online sources were required to confirm the status of outlets. If two sources could not confirm the status, we conducted phone call checks and/or in-person visits. RESULTS: The final baseline database included 2585 food outlets across six neighborhoods. Ascertaining the status of food outlets was more difficult in lower-resourced neighborhoods and Chinese ethnic enclaves compared to higher-resourced areas. Higher-resourced neighborhoods required fewer phone call and in-person checks for both restaurants and food retailers than other neighborhoods. CONCLUSIONS: Our multi-step data collection approach maximized safety and efficiency while minimizing cost and resources. Challenges in remote data collection varied by neighborhood and may reflect the different resources or social capital of the communities; understanding neighborhood-specific constraints prior to data collection may streamline the process.

COVID-19 Leads to Dramatic Changes in the Food Retail Environment in New York City: May-July 2020.

A systematic assessment of the effect of COVID-19 on the food retail environment-an important determinant of health-has not been conducted. Our objective was to assess the impact of COVID-19 on closures of restaurants, food retail stores, and fresh produce vendors in New York City (NYC). We conducted a cross-sectional study following the peak of COVID-19 in six neighborhoods in NYC. Two Chinese ethnic neighborhoods and four higher/lower resourced comparison neighborhoods were selected a priori based on 14 sociodemographic indicators. The primary outcome was indefinite/temporary closures or absence of food businesses. Of 2720 food businesses identified, produce vendors and restaurants were more likely to close than food retail stores. A higher proportion of food businesses closed in Chinese ethnic neighborhoods vs. comparison neighborhoods. COVID-19 impacted food businesses in six NYC neighborhoods examined in this period, with the greatest effect observed for Chinese ethnic neighborhoods.

Evaluating Closures of Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Vendors During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Methodology and Preliminary Results Using Omnidirectional Street View Imagery.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly disrupted the food retail environment. However, its impact on fresh fruit and vegetable vendors remains unclear; these are often smaller, more community centered, and may lack the financial infrastructure to withstand supply and demand changes induced by such crises. OBJECTIVE: This study documents the methodology used to assess fresh fruit and vegetable vendor closures in New York City (NYC) following the start of the COVID-19 pandemic by using Google Street View, the new Apple Look Around database, and in-person checks. METHODS: In total, 6 NYC neighborhoods (in Manhattan and Brooklyn) were selected for analysis; these included two socioeconomically advantaged neighborhoods (Upper East Side, Park Slope), two socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods (East Harlem, Brownsville), and two Chinese ethnic neighborhoods (Chinatown, Sunset Park). For each neighborhood, Google Street View was used to virtually walk down each street and identify vendors (stores, storefronts, street vendors, or wholesalers) that were open and active in 2019 (ie, both produce and vendor personnel were present at a location). Past vendor surveillance (when available) was used to guide these virtual walks. Each identified vendor was geotagged as a Google Maps pinpoint that research assistants then physically visited. Using the "notes" feature of Google Maps as a data collection tool, notes were made on which of three categories best described each vendor: (1) open, (2) open with a more limited setup (eg, certain sections of the vendor unit that were open and active in 2019 were missing or closed during in-person checks), or (3) closed/absent. RESULTS: Of the 135 open vendors identified in 2019 imagery data, 35% (n=47) were absent/closed and 10% (n=13) were open with more limited setups following the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. When comparing boroughs, 35% (28/80) of vendors in Manhattan were absent/closed, as were 35% (19/55) of vendors in Brooklyn. Although Google Street View was able to provide 2019 street view imagery data for most neighborhoods, Apple Look Around was required for 2019 imagery data for some areas of Park Slope. Past surveillance data helped to identify 3 additional established vendors in Chinatown that had been missed in street view imagery. The Google Maps "notes" feature was used by multiple research assistants simultaneously to rapidly collect observational data on mobile devices. CONCLUSIONS: The methodology employed enabled the identification of closures in the fresh fruit and vegetable retail environment and can be used to assess closures in other contexts. The use of past baseline surveillance data to aid vendor identification was valuable for identifying vendors that may have been absent or visually obstructed in the street view imagery data. Data collection using Google Maps likewise has the potential to enhance the efficiency of fieldwork in future studies.