Date of this Version

2024

Document Type

DNP Project

Abstract

For a multitude of reasons, there has been an increase in vaccine hesitancy after the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, immigrant children were routinely immunized at a lower rate than children born in the United States. In recent years, provider education programs have been proven to increase overall immunization rates for individuals of all ages. This quality improvement project sought to determine the effect of an educational intervention on provider knowledge and confidence in navigating vaccine hesitancy amongst immigrant families. The project utilized a quasi-experimental pretest posttest design with the implementation of a provider education program. Participants were all pediatric providers, including physicians, nurse practitioners, registered nurses and medical assistants, who all provide clinical care in a pediatric primary care clinic in Miami, Florida. Data was collected via pretest and posttest questionnaire, assessing vaccine knowledge, attitudes and recommendation practices. Data was inputted into Qualtrics and statistically analyzed using the Wilcoxon Signed Rank tests. There was a statistically significant increase in both vaccine knowledge and attitudes after the intervention and no statistically significant change for vaccine recommendation practices. Of all providers who had attended previous education regarding childhood immunizations, approximately 70% stated there was never discussion regarding cultural effects on vaccine behaviors. The result of this quality improvement project supports the importance of educating pediatric providers regarding evidence-based information about vaccines and navigating vaccine hesitancy with the eventual goal of increasing childhood immunization rates to greater than 95% nationwide. Understanding the cultural context of vaccine behavior should be at the center for navigating these conversations amongst immigrant children and their families.

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