Children's Hospital Los Angeles on April 25 selected three winners of its VaxUp Challenge, a campaign to increase COVID-19 vaccination rates among children and teens.
The hospital partnered with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health for the program, which was designed to test, generate and scale creative ideas that will increase COVID-19 vaccination rates in children and teens who are disproportionately affected by the virus.
The three winning teams will receive $75,000 each to further develop their programs and pilot them in Los Angeles County, according to a news release. They winners are:
- Kedren Community Health Center: The center plans to continue its work vaccinating the community through free and immersive family-friendly events and mobile vaccine clinics.
- Northeast Valley Health Corp.: The provider developed a program in which patients receive an electronic vaccine readiness assessment. Clinical staff then use data from the assessment, as well as a persona-based algorithm, to create customized motivational interviewing techniques specific to the patient's circumstances and beliefs.
- MiVacunaLA: MiVacunaLA will enroll 600 Latino parents with at least one unvaccinated child in a four-week program in which they will receive credible vaccination information via text messages. The program will also train 20 Latino parent ambassadors with at least one vaccinated child to recruit nonvaccinated families and share reliable vaccine information.