The South Carolina Immunization Coalition includes a wide range of volunteer community and technical experts and organizations with the mission to promote the overall health of South Carolinians by uniting vaccination champions to encourage and implement evidenced-based practices and strategies that enhance the uptake of recommended vaccines. Champions include lead researchers in the immunization field from South Carolina-based universities, Beth Poore with the state of South Carolina public health and education, private sector vaccine professional Bill Matthews, and state-wide state health and provider leaders and professionals.

The CCME Foundation grants were used to support the “Every Visit is a Vaccine Visit” EV3 campaign in four South Carolina counties: Cherokee, Chesterfield, Jasper, and Lancaster, all determined as highest need for education and action to increase vaccination rates among school-aged children. EV3 was designed to promote vaccine confidence messaging to help parents and caregivers in their decision-making, improve access to vaccination services for school-aged children, and improve access to immunization educational opportunities for healthcare professionals in these underserved areas of South Carolina.

The Coalition was able to provide a toolkit for vaccine partners, virtual training sessions for health community members, and vaccine education social media campaigns. In addition, the Coalition has partnered with two leading researchers from the University of South Carolina and Duke University to facilitate a three-hour Motivational Interviewing for Vaccination Promotion workshop for immunization professionals – free of charge. Motivational Interviewing is a client-centered approach designed to help people find motivation to make a positive behavior change. These trainings help healthcare professionals learn and practice these core skills when meeting with families and presenting them with vaccine information.

Lastly, the Coalition has partnered with schools to work with school nurses and deploy mobile vaccination clinics in support of the vaccination needs of school-aged children, complete with a drawstring pack of free school supplies for participants. The mobile vaccination effort went from one clinic to twelve in just a few weeks, and this initiative will extend to include the beginning of the 2023 school year. Coalition Director, Alexandra Hayes, stated, “This is not something we’ve been able to do in these counties before, and we plan to expand our reach to everyone within those communities and are looking into the border counties to be able to expand our outreach next year.” The Coalition hopes to continue its current model and replicate it across the state in underserved counties and communities and perhaps even within older adults.

To learn more about this impactful campaign in South Carolina, please visit: www.scicvax.org.