Tag Archive for: cdc

EXCITE Launches Implementation Phase for 33 Immunization Education Projects/37 Land-grant Universities

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Cooperative Extension has been given the opportunity to continue immunization education work through the Extension Collaborative on Immunization Teaching and Engagement (EXCITE). The Extension Foundation, in cooperation with the Extension Committee on Organization and Policy (ECOP), through an Interagency Agreement with the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are funding the Cooperative Extension System to increase vaccine confidence among rural and other underserved communities.  Extension Collaborative on Immunization Teaching and Engagement

This new funded effort builds on the success of two prior projects since 2021 including the EXCITE Vaccinate with Confidence Communication Campaign, and competitively-selected EXCITE Pilot Projects. For the new Implementation Phase, 33 projects from 37 institutions have been awarded, including five institutions that are new to EXCITE. These projects represent all six regions of LGUs. EXCITE serves all Land-grant Universities (LGUs) and all were invited to apply. 

The Implementation Phase expands the project scope to include all adult immunizations and COVID-19. The overarching goals of the new phase of EXCITE is to enhance the accessibility and acceptability of local adult immunization opportunities for rural populations through strategic partnerships, while also instilling greater confidence in LGUs to provide effective COVID-19 immunization education. The CDC has identified two priorities for the EXCITE projects in this Implementation Phase. The projects must serve a rural and medically underserved population, and they must have a public health partnership.

The Implementation Phase is an 18-month educational campaign, characterized by community engagement and close collaboration with public health partners. To support the participating teams, a mentoring/coaching model will be implemented, providing valuable guidance and assistance throughout the project. Furthermore, quarterly professional development workshops will be conducted to foster continuous  learning and sharing among the teams.

The objectives of the new Implementation Phase of EXCITE as are follows:

  1. Increasing partnerships with local departments of public health with special emphasis placed on those at the local level.
  2. Increasing positive perception of public health partners and vaccine providers of the value of collaboration with Extension
  3. Changing attitudes and beliefs within LGU’s about adult immunization will lead the organization to become an asset model focused on building early adoption and innovation leaders in adult immunization education
  4. Assessing best practices for adult immunization in rural communities through National Convening and three selected pilot projects

Below is a list of institutions receiving funding for the Implementation Phase:

Aaniiih Nakoda College
Auburn University
Blackfeet Community College
Central State University
Clemson University
Cornell University
Florida A&M University & University of Florida
Institute of American Indian Arts
Lincoln University
Mississippi State University
North Carolina State University
North Carolina A&T State University
Ohio State University & Texas A&M University
Pennsylvania State University
Purdue University
Southern University
Tennessee State University
Tuskegee University
United Tribes Technical College
University of Arkansas
University of California System
University of Delaware
University of Georgia
University of Idaho
University of Illinois
University of Kentucky
University of Maryland
University of Minnesota
University of the District of Columbia
Utah State University
Virginia Polytechnic Institute & Virginia State University
West Virginia State University & West Virginia University

ABOUT EXCITE

Extension Collaboration on Immunization Teaching and Engagement (EXCITE) is a nationwide local response by U.S. Cooperative Extension made possible through an interagency agreement between United States Department of Agriculture – National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA-NIFA) and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and a cooperative agreement with the Extension Foundation in partnership with the ECOP Health Program Action Team. 

Extension Foundation Role

On behalf of the Cooperative Extension System, the Extension Foundation serves as Principal Investigator, provides grants administration, fiscal, operational, and technological services, system-wide communication, innovation processes, wrap-around services for projects, data collection and dashboards, and partnership development for the EXCITE Program.

 

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Extension Collaborative on Immunization Teaching and Engagement: May 2021 Immunization Education Programs Spotlight

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Cooperative Extension programs are making an impact on communities across the country with immunization education efforts, particularly with vaccine-hesitant individuals. Activities include mobile vaccination clinics in partnership with local health organizations, social media campaigns, the development of online toolkits promoting research-based immunization information, and more. This month, the EXCITE program is highlighting how an immunization education program in Virginia implemented a hotline phone registration system that now receives 28% of all vaccination registrants in the county, and how a team in Louisiana is using social media to promote COVID-19 vaccination fact sheets.

The Extension Foundation, in cooperation with the Extension Committee on Organization and Policy (ECOP), through an Interagency Agreement (IAA) with the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are funding the Cooperative Extension System (CES) to address health disparities among rural and other underserved communities. This initiative is called the Extension Collaborative on Immunization Teaching & Engagement (EXCITE).

The EXCITE program serves all land-grant universities through two-phases of activities: system-wide engagement with the CDC’s Vaccinate with Confidence communication campaign, and adult immunization education pilot projects.

Those across Cooperative Extension working in the area of Immunization Education have been registering their programs in the National Registry of Cooperative Extension Programs and Assets (NRCEPA). The NRCEPA is a new tool made available through the Extension Foundation to create a living database of Cooperative Extension programs, projects, and curriculums to rapidly identify existing work across the system for national funding opportunities. Currently, the NRCEPA is in pilot with the EXCITE program.

For May 2021, EXCITE is highlighting two programs registered in the NRCEPA that are working in the area of immunization education:

Madison County COVID Vaccination Clinics

The Virginia Cooperative Extension in Madison County worked with the local health districts and hospitals to create a county-wide COVID Vaccine hotline registration system and vaccine clinic to target the county’s underserved population. By implementing a hotline phone registration system, they were able to decrease registration barriers which allowed for farmworkers, elderly with limited or no internet access, and those with limited English proficiency to register for vaccines. Due to this innovative and efficient effort, Madison county has now administered 4466 vaccines at the clinic with 28% of the registrants coming through the vaccine hotline. The Virginia Cooperative Extension will continue to build on its trusted relationship with the public to implement strategies to vaccinate hard to reach and hesitant populations.

In the NRCEPA, this program has offered several digital assets to assist other Cooperative Extension programs. This includes their vaccine appointment form template, COVID-19 Vaccine 101 factsheets, infographics, and sample advertisements.

COVID-19 Vaccine Education/Outreach Initiative – Southern University

In Louisiana, Southern University Extension Agency was facing the issue of low vaccine registration turnout due to medical mistrust among their community members. Being a trusted community resource, Southern University was able to combat this issue by utilizing their social platforms and website to inform and educate on COVID-19 and vaccinations. Southern University used pre-existing information and data from the CDC to create fact-sheets for their website, as well as the CDC social media guide to launch campaigns and webinars on the COVID-19 vaccine. This outreach and education program was an initiative created to educate and advise their underserved population on vaccines and the need for immunization.

In the NRCEPA, this program has offered several digital assets to assist other Cooperative Extension programs. This includes several infographics and fact sheets.

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Cooperative Extension Service Immunization Education Project Immunization Education Fellow

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This project is a collaborative effort among the Extension Committee on Policy (ECOP), , eXtension, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  It grew out of efforts undertaken by the ECOP Health Innovation Task Force. eXtension anticipates receiving funding for Immunization Education efforts.  Key Extension leaders on this project are Dr. Roger Rennekamp, Dr. Michelle Rodgers, Dr. Caroline Henney, Ms. Ali Mitchell Dunigan and Dr. Chris Geith.  This project will allow CDC and the Cooperative Extension System to address health disparities among rural and other underserved communities by facilitating discussions at the community level to address barriers and concerns about COVID-19, flu and other adult vaccinations.  It is designed to help increase connections and communication between the community and health care practices, as well as increase accessibility and acceptability of local vaccination clinics and opportunities with the goal to and mobilize communities to implement public health programs to reduce health disparities, especially in rural areas. The four broad areas of emphasis for this project are:

  • A National Assessment
    • Create a landscape report through a national assessment of current activities, locations and delivery of extension immunization education, community dialogue, and the cooperative delivery of immunization clinics.  Timeline:   April-July 2021 
  • Vaccinate with Confidence National Campaign
    • Work with all 111 LGUs who are eligible to apply for funding to support their customization and deployment of the Vaccinate with Confidence Campaign. The package includes materials from the CDC, professional development offerings by the Vaccinate with Confidence technical assistance team available to all LGU’s and funding. LGU’s will complete a standardized and simple online application organized around a rubric to ensure funding priorities, such as serving underserved audiences and collecting standard data.  This information will be built into an application form briefly requiring a description of their planned implementation and their planned budget.  
  • An Impact Collaborative Summit
    • Work with eXtension Foundation to offer an Impact Collaborative Summit to develop opportunities for immunization education and clinics utilizing Extension resources, staff and locations as well as their partnerships with local health education resources, staff and immunization locations.  This Summit will help potential pilot recipients incubate and plan to accelerate opportunities for immunization education in rural and underserved communities.   Timeline:  April 2021.
  • Implement immunization education and clinic pilots, community dialogues, and the cooperative delivery of immunization clinics. Timeline:  May 2021-March 2022.
    • Pilots will test out immunization education programs, community dialogue frameworks, and clinic models in rural and underserved communities that will include data collection and use of common metrics for reporting.
    • A non-research report of what is learned will be created and shared with the Cooperative Extension System and collaborative leaders of this project. This report is to be a brief report and summary of the pilots from the pilot leaders. 

This project is seeking an Immunization Education Fellow who will work collaboratively with the Project Director and Assistant Project Director of the Immunization Education Project. This will be a one year buyout from a land grant university for approximately 10% time.   eXtension will serve as the principal investigator for the project and eXtension will serve as a backbone for the project efforts. 

The work of the fellows will focus on building the capacity and expanding the portfolio of the Cooperative Extension System’s work focused on health and well being.  Much of this will be accomplished through a Connect Extension subgroup where fellows will work as a team to foster identification and sharing of programmatic resources, expertise and collaboration around priority themes determined by Roger Rennekamp. This position will report to Dr. Roger Rennekamp.  

  • Engage Connect Extension group members weekly in planned activities such as learning circles, webinars, cafes, dialogs, and chat events. 
  • Create content that encourages engagement of members such as blog posts, forum questions and surveys related to Immunization Education. 
  • Catalyze the growth and effectiveness of the Immunization Education community on the Connect Extension digital platform.   
  • Develop a tagging vocabulary in Connect Extension to make resources easy to find. 
  • Design and host at least three national professional development online events to the Cooperative Extension System with eXtension; for example, an action dialog or a webinar.
  • Report monthly on group engagement to Roger Rennenkamp.
  • This position will work remotely.  Knowledge and experience with virtual work and computer skills are needed for this position.

The projected timeline for this position is  April 1, 2021 through March 30, 2022: (dependent upon project funding)

February 18 until position is filled:  Accept letters of interest and resumes

April 1, 2021: Start date for Immunization Fellow

April 1, 2021: Official start for the Project

If there are questions, please contact Dr. Roger Rennekamp Ph.D., Extension Health Director, at rogerrennekamp@extension.org

Persons interested in this position should apply here:  https://form.jotform.com/210485133469154

Contact Brenna Kotar, eXtension Foundation at ceoassistant@extension.org with questions pertaining to the application.  

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Tag Archive for: cdc

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