The Community Opinions on Vaccine Issues and Decisions (COVID) Survey: Using a rapid Knowledge, Attitude and Practice (KAP) survey in supporting a community engagement approach to address COVID-19 vaccine uptake initiatives.

BackgroundIn the UK, it is acknowledged that ethnic minority communities have lower vaccination uptake rates compared with their White ethnic counterparts. It is additionally recognised that the UK Muslim community represents diverse ethnicities, which is reflected through their places of worship, namely mosques. Given the current pandemic and the rollout of the COVID-19 Vaccination campaign, mosques, in their capacity as community organisations, have been involved in health promotion initiatives such as webinars. The objective of this project was to support and improve COVID-19 Vaccine related health promotion activities being delivered by mosques in the UK city of Leeds by using a rapidly administered KAP survey. MethodsA short survey was developed, reviewed for appropriateness by relevant mosque leaders, and distributed electronically to 2 mosque congregations. Analysis involved cumulative average scores for key domains with adjustment for key demographics, as well as a review of engagement preferences. Findings were fed back during an engagement webinar hosted by one of the mosques. ResultsThere were a total of 151 participants, majority were male (95), between the ages of 31-50 (88) and of Asian ethnicity (102). Average Knowledge, Attitude and Practice scores for participants from Leeds Grand Mosque were 67,69 and 74% respectively, with participants from Leeds Makkah Mosque scoring 65, 62 and 67% respectively. Female participants as well as those aged less than 30 years scored poorer across all domains compared with the group average. The most important sources of information in relation to the vaccine were considered to be General Practitioners (GP) and National Health Service (NHS) or Government Websites. ConclusionsA KAP survey is a useful tool to develop insights on community perspectives to the COVID-19 Vaccine, and can be rapidly deployed through community organisations such as mosques. Survey findings can then be used to improve the nature of health promotion, community engagement and service delivery in relation to mosques and their congregations. Adapting the survey for other groups and communities, as well as scaling up the partnership-based approaches to survey administration would support the development of multi-component strategies to address vaccine concerns and uptake.