Pharmacy U Vancouver presenter Shelita Dattani: "Lessons from the pandemic."
Shelita Dattani will be presenting at Pharmacy U Vancouver on Nov. 4, 2023.
“The world has just seen the largest vaccination campaign in history. At least 13 billion COVID shots have been administered. More injections, by a sweeping margin, then there are human beings on the Earth”. Millions of lives have been saved. Yet the legacy is already in doubt. A football player nearly died on national TV and fears about vaccines fanned the internet. Experts warn that vaccine confidence is wavering for every kind of immunization. And worry that it may collapse in years to come.”
- The Atlantic, February 2, 2023
In 2019, just a year before the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization stated that vaccine hesitancy is one of the top 10 threats to global health. It is influenced by everything from safety concerns to mistrust of government, media and health care providers, to the “infodemic,” which catapulted conspiracy theories and misinformation.
However, we also know that if people have confidence in the safety of the vaccine and the system that delivers it, if they are reminded that their own actions can foster “community immunity,” or if their healthcare provider or role models recommend vaccination or have been vaccinated, uptake is facilitated.
Pharmacy teams have been vaccinating Canadians for well over a decade and are integral in establishing, building and maintaining vaccine confidence. Pharmacists have helped to build confidence with influenza vaccines, routine immunizations and have reassured their communities about safety of vaccination in children and pregnancy.
In 2020, life changed and led to greater challenges with “infodemic” management, and hesitancy related to misinformation or disinformation. Pharmacists, as the most accessible healthcare providers, open when so many others were “closed” in the early stages, were forced to navigate a dynamic and changing conversation often rooted in mistrust. With so many factors contributing to a hesitancy matrix, we needed to contextualize hesitancy in navigating those conversations. Faced with changing guidance, media sensationalism, little advance notice on eligibility changes and lack of access to primary care providers – we faced many head-on challenges with our communities, sometimes leading to vaccine shopping or outright refusal to get vaccines. There was hesitancy with respect to “brand” of vaccine, safety of the COVID-19 vaccine, bivalent hesitancy, parental hesitancy, fatigue, apathy and complacency.
This fall, as we continue to see the need for COVID-19 vaccines, influenza vaccines, other routine vaccines and new vaccines such as RSV, continuing the vaccine conversation is critical. This dynamic session will help you identify key conversation and motivational interviewing strategies as a vaccinator, an educator and a healthcare provider so that you can continue to build trusted relationships and increase vaccine uptake in your practice.
Shelita Dattani will be presenting at Pharmacy U Vancouver on Nov. 4, 2023.