Los Angeles County is a large and diverse county that is more populous than 42 states in the United States. In Los Angeles County, 185 languages are spoken and 42% of residents are Spanish speakers [6]. Given the sheer size of Los Angeles County, we plan to target the campaign to communities with the highest rates of infection and the lowest vaccination rates. Using these criteria, we identified 34 zip codes located in the Eastside and South Los Angeles. A map of neighborhoods in these zip code areas (based on vaccination rates from May 2021) is shown in Figure 2. The goal will be to work closely with existing partners and forge new partnerships in these same communities. The campaign will target to five distinct segments of the population: (1) Latino and Black residents of South Los Angeles; (2) Latino and Black residents in the Eastside of Los Angeles; (3) members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) community; (4) parents of school-age children, both vaccinated and unvaccinated; and (5) community health workers in Spanish-speaking communities, called promotores de salud.

This area has historically been predominantly Black; however, approximately 28% of current South Los Angeles residents are Black. Low-wage, temporary jobs are common in this area, as is poverty and unemployment [7].

East Los Angeles is historically a predominantly Latino area, and approximately 96% of current residents in this area identify as Hispanic or Latino. Spanish is the first language for most residents aged 5 years and older [8]. The median household income is just over US $46,000, and approximately 20% of the population live at the poverty line [8].

The pandemic’s effect on parents included hardships such as facilitating online learning, new safety measures at school, and an overwhelming amount of information about vaccine and booster eligibility. Balancing multiple priorities at work and at home, caring for sick family members, and experiencing loss and unemployment also take a toll.

The LGBTQ+ community is also facing challenges and barriers to getting vaccinated. In California, 5.3% of the population identify as gender and/or sexual minority individuals [9]. Reliable statistics for county-level data could not be identified. These individuals regularly experience challenges in accessing medical care, are often stigmatized and discriminated against, and experience high rates of violence [10].

Our final group of interest is promotores de salud [11]. We will partner with an organization, called Vision y Compromiso, which provides comprehensive and ongoing leadership development, capacity building, advocacy training, and support to over 4000 promotores throughout the State of California and in a region within Mexico [12]. We will conduct a focus group with promotores to understand the challenges that local communities experience during the pandemic.

A series of virtual townhall events for community members will be delivered. The format will be to have 1 or 2 guest speakers offer short presentations (approximately 10 minutes), followed by up to 60 minutes for questions and answers. Our guest speakers will include trusted community leaders, local physicians, pediatricians, and other health care providers. Guest speakers will provide up-to-date information about the pandemic, infection rates in local communities, and the safety and efficacy of available vaccine/boosters. Information about available resources will also be presented (eg, how and where to access vaccinations/boosters). Town hall events will also be offered to specific segments of the population, including parents of children eligible for the vaccine and booster, Spanish-speaking parents, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and congregations within the faith community. We will advertise and promote these events through email listserves, targeted outreach to community partners, flyers, and social media. The flyer will include information about how to RSVP online, as well as how to submit questions in advance of the event. After each townhall event, we will develop frequently-asked-question sheets based on the questions asked by the community.

Educational workshops will be offered virtually to smaller groups, allowing for more focused discussions as well as more time allotted to address attendees’ questions/concerns. These workshops will be delivered by promotores on our staff. Workshops will be offered multiple times per week and regularly updated to reflect the most recent data and information regarding vaccine and COVID-19 regulations and requirements. Due to the skills and background of our promotores, workshops can be developed quickly to meet the evolving educational needs of the community. Attendees will be asked to provide feedback after each workshop to help inform future workshop topics.

We will work with local artists, content creators, and film makers to develop and produce a variety of still images and messages for social media, public service announcements (PSAs), brief #ShareYourWhy testimonial videos, short films, and a fotonovela. In addition to partnering with the local community, we will also be partnering with Wondros, a creative design and production agency, to help us craft engaging messages to address common fears, misinformation, and questions about the safety and efficacy of the vaccines. Once developed, we will solicit input from community leaders and CAB members before the products are disseminated. With each product, individuals will be directed to the VaccinateLA website for more information [13]. Most importantly, the website will also include links to additional information and resources, such as a list of local vaccination sites, a link to make a vaccination appointment, and a way to request assistance from a vaccine navigator. The following provides more information about the planned multimedia campaign.

We will work with the USC Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences to develop a bilingual fotonovela entitled Infectious Rumors. We will partner with La Opinión, a popular local newspaper, to print and distribute 40,000 copies to their subscribers as an insert in their paper; an additional 10,000 copies will be distributed to community partners, pediatric offices, and schools and at vaccine pop-up clinics. Fotonovelas are print versions of telenovelas, which use storytelling as an educational tool and are popular among Latino populations [14].

We will partner with the USC’s Annenberg School for Journalism and Communication and USC School of Cinematic Arts to produce two 8-minute films. These will be coproduced and directed by local Black and Latino filmmakers, who will assist with storyboarding, planning, filming, and editing. One film, called Happy Birthday Granny, will feature a birthday celebration of a Black family. A second film, called Of Reasons and Rumors, will feature 2 young Latinas discussing rumors and misinformation associated with the vaccine (in both English and Spanish). Both films will use the art of storytelling as an approach to deliver evidence-based information about COVID-19, routes of transmission, and the safety and efficacy of the vaccine, as well as to address common misinformation and disinformation about COVID-19 and the vaccines. The videos will be posted on the VaccinateLA’s website, on project-dedicated YouTube and Vimeo accounts, on social media accounts created for VaccinateLA, and with organizations such as the American Association of Public Health and the National Alliance for Hispanic Health with its 15 million Latino members nationwide.

Local leaders, community members, physicians, nurses, and pediatricians will be asked to share their experiences and reasons for why they chose to be vaccinated; these testimonials will be recorded and edited into short 1-minute videos, called #ShareYourWhy. The #ShareYourWhy videos will be produced by a local video production and editing company, called Everyone Can Eat.

We will partner with USC’s Hollywood, Health & Society to produce multiple PSAs. USC’s Hollywood, Health & Society will also partner with LifeNoggin, to develop an animated video to be titled, What if everyone got the COVID vaccine? LifeNoggin is a YouTube channel that uses animation to deliver scientific content to its more than 3.26 million subscribers.

The VaccinateLA team, with assistance from Wondros and Everyone Can Eat, will launch a full-scale social media campaign on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. We will create original content in both English and Spanish using still images, reels, and short videos with captions and video end cards directing individuals to our website to learn more or schedule an appointment. Data analytics will be reviewed to ensure we successfully reach our targeted audiences

We will partner with the USC Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, to offer pop-up vaccination clinics in locations chosen by the community (eg, church parking lots, health fairs, local YMCAs, places of employment, and other local venues). At pop-up clinics, we also will host food banks, back-to-school backpack distributions, and tables with information and access to resources such as housing assistance and employment. We will coordinate with social services, such as Women, Infants, and Children and rent relief resources, to distribute essential products such as diapers, personal protective equipment, and personal hygiene and household products such as detergent and shampoo. In addition, we will provide preventive health screenings such as blood pressure screenings and wellness counseling. Members of our team and CVNs will staff these events. Toolkits with advice on how to replicate such pop-up vaccine clinics will be developed and available on the VaccinateLA website.

We will train and deploy community-embedded health workers and promotores to be CVNs in our targeted communities. This virtual training will involve 6 to 8 hours of teaching and instructor-led educational content over multiple days, culminating in a 4.5-hour experiential field training. CVNs will learn about COVID-19 transmission, risk mitigation, how to identify and refer people to credible sources, vaccine efficacy, and how to schedule vaccine appointments on someone’s behalf. At the end of their training, each CVN will receive a toolkit to reinforce the training. In South Los Angeles, we will partner with the Southern California National Council of Negro Women, Inc. to deploy CVNs. We will be partnering with Vision y Compromiso to train and deploy CVNs in our targeted Latino communities.

We intend to conduct in-person restorative circles facilitated by community partners with Black men aged 18 to 35 years and individuals who identify as LGBTQ+. A restorative circle is an intentional gathering of people who have a shared, often traumatic or painful, experiences. These circles serve as a safe space for sharing struggles and expressing grief and trauma, ideally providing a path to healing and connection with others who may have had similar experiences. They are designed to address the longstanding historical trauma and pain around topics such as medical and institutional racism and police brutality against people of color and gender and sexual minority groups, which have worsened and been made more visible during the pandemic. Meals will be provided, and each participant will be offered a parting gift designed by the facilitator, such as journals, pens, and additional information about self-care, mental health, and domestic services in the Los Angeles area.