New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Law professor: Efforts to broadcast vaccine participation may see pushback
Efforts to raise awareness of how many people in Connecticut are getting a COVID-19 vaccine could meet with resistance from individuals concerned about facing criticism for their choice, according to a local law professor.
Quinnipiac University law professor John Thomas said plans by the city of New Haven and AT&T to give out lapel pins to those who have received either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine is something of a double-edged sword.
The Texas-based telecommunications giant is providing 5,000 lapel pins for the first people who receive the vaccine, in order to help spread the word of the importance of the vaccination, according to the city.
“In some ways, it’s the equivalent of the ‘I Voted’ sticker in that it helps boost civic pride,” Thomas said. “At the same time, I understand that people might be afraid to wear the pin because of any criticism they might get from
Balcezak said some hospitals have workers wear badges to indicate they’ve received a flu shot.
individuals who are antivaccine.”
Thomas said he doesn’t view the campaign as a privacy concern because people aren’t required to wear the pins.
“I do think people will run a personal algorithm about how much taking the vaccine will benefit the public versus how much negative feedback they might get,” he said.
John Emra, president of AT&T New England, said the idea of using lapel pins to promote awareness came from New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker’s office.
“We thought it was a great way to build awareness, to get the message out,” Emra said. “I like the idea that this initial batch is mostly going to be going to our front-line heroes. They've done a heck of a lot for us.”
The pin reads “COVID-19 vaccinated” with the city’s logo, and also is meant to draw attention to the fact that the city’s vaccination program has begun.
Elicker could not immediately be reached for comment Monday evening on the pin plan.
The idea for indicating a vaccine has been given is not unique. In an unrelated effort, Dr. Thomas Balcezak, chief clinical officer for Yale New Haven Health, said earlier this month that the system was considering giving out badges to signal employees who have been COVID-19 vaccinated.
Balcezak said some hospitals have workers wear badges to indicate they’ve received a flu shot.
Not only is it a way to show who is more protected against COVID-19, Balcezak said this month, it’s effective marketing. “Once people see that so many others have gotten (the vaccine), they’re going to want to get it, too,” he said.
Nationally, the nonprofit Ad Council — which created the wildfire prevention campaign of Smokey Bear — is putting together a $50 million campaign that will be launched early next year to promote taking the COVID-19 vaccine. The campaign will rely heavily on help from social media influencers and use artificial intelligence to study and predict what kind of content does best with different audiences.
The focus of the campaign will include special attention to the Latino and Black communities. Those communities are thought to have a reluctance toward taking the vaccine because of distrust of government, existing health inequities and historical racism in the health care system.
Rich Hanley, an associate professor of journalism and the graduate journalism program director at Quinnipiac’s School of Communications, said even though the use of lapel pins “is pretty low-tech” compared to the national social media campaign, it could be incredibly effective in the New Haven area.
“New Haven is an ‘eds and meds’ town,” Hanley said, referring to the region’s two largest economic drivers, education and health care.
“If doctors and nurses, who are getting the vaccine first, wear these lapel pins to the supermarket or whenever they are out in public, it could have a good reach because people do notice that kind of thing,” he said. “But if they just put them in drawer and treat them as a souvenir, it’s going to be useless.”
Hanley said the “big battle to get the message across is going to be on social media.”
“Anti-vaxxers are already mounting a disinformation campaign regarding the vaccine on social media, so what the Ad Council is doing may be better for neutralizing that,” Hanley said.