Social media campaign to promote COVID-19 vaccination in Nigeria
Upswell supported all aspects of this initiative to reduce COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among healthcare providers in six Nigerian states, with the ultimate aim of raising overall vaccine uptake. The project’s success rested on 17 local organizations at the center of the campaign. They helped write and share trustworthy messages on social media, which gave more people access to credible vaccine information.
The project measured its progress by reach and engagement. Because we tracked data closely and adapted our strategies, we reached over 70% of our target audience across the key states. Engagement started lower than we wanted, but it improved significantly over two campaigns as we adjusted our approach. Along the way we learned, among other things, that active community management is needed to stop misinformation from spreading, and that local leadership increases community interaction.
An independent study by the Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington University measured the campaign’s impact. The researchers used a quasi-experimental design and followed a longitudinal cohort across all 37 states in Nigeria. The study, published in PLoS One, found that the campaign led to increased vaccination rates in the targeted states compared with non-targeted states (Evans et al., 2023). It also pointed to pro-vaccination social norms as a driver of these outcomes.
A cost-effectiveness analysis by Professor Michael Long at the George Washington University put the intervention’s incremental cost-effectiveness ratio at $54.5. That result is consistent with studies of other social media campaigns promoting COVID-19 vaccine uptake. It is also 1-8% of the estimated cost per life year saved by vaccination against COVID-19 in low- and middle-income countries, which indicates that the campaign was highly cost-effective. The cost-effectiveness study is currently under peer review.
Together, these findings show that our social media strategies and local partnerships countered vaccine hesitancy and promoted public health cost-effectively.
Reference:
Evans WD, Bingenheimer JB, Long M, Ndiaye K, Donati D, Rao NM, Akaba S, Nsofor I, Agha S. (2023). Outcomes of a social media campaign to promote COVID-19 vaccination in Nigeria. PLoS One, 18(9):e0290757. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0290757.
