A $3,000 grant from the American College Health Association (ACHA) will aid the Wellness Center on USF’s St. Petersburg campus with developing greater vaccine confidence on campus and in the community in order to increase rates of COVID vaccinations.
The Wellness Center was one of 50 student health centers at colleges and universities across the nation, and one of just three in Florida, to receive a Campus COVID-19 Vaccine (CoVAC) Initiative Mini-Grant from the ACHA.
“Ensuring that we provide a safe and healthy environment for our community as they return to campus is crucial, and this grant will help us do so by finding innovative ways that reduces hesitancy and increases vaccination rates among young adults,” said Patti Helton, regional vice chancellor of student success at the St. Petersburg campus and USF associate vice president of health & wellness.
The goal of the grant is to bring together college health professionals and campus leaders, faculty, staff and students to address challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the Florida Department of Health, around 65 percent of the state’s population has received one or both doses of a COVID vaccine. The percentages drop dramatically as you move from older to younger Floridians.
More than 85 percent of Floridians 65 and older are vaccinated, but only 47 percent of those aged 20-29 and aged 12-19 are vaccinated. Those younger groups comprise nearly 5 million Floridians.
“There are really two massive barriers we need to break down with college students,” said Victoria Beltran, assistant director of prevention services at the Wellness Center. “First, the misinformation on social media and in different media outlets is really staggering and we really need to get the right information on the right channels to the right people. The second issue is through most of the pandemic, the message was that older adults were the group most at risk, so it was easy for young people to think they didn’t have to worry. The delta variant has shifted that, and young people are getting sick and at great risk, but their behavior hasn’t changed.”
The Wellness Center will use the mini-grant to develop partnerships across the university to raise awareness of vaccine benefits while combatting misinformation that reduces hesitancy. They plan to provide incentives while learning success strategies from other institutions all in order to increase vaccination rates.
“By incentivizing through shirts, buttons and other rewards, our hope is that students display that they got the vaccine and others who see a lot of their peers wearing these as a statement will reinforce a message and influence them that we can all do this together,” Beltran said.
The Wellness Center plans to work directly with students from a wide variety of backgrounds as ambassadors and influencers for the student body in order to change the perception around vaccines. They also want to partner with faculty, who can act as a conduit of campus information, especially for commuter and non-traditional students, to get vaccine information in front of students in an academic setting.
Since May, a weekly vaccine clinic has been available on the St. Petersburg campus for the entire USF community and their family members. That will continue throughout the fall semester, and timely messages will be sent out to the community to ensure no vaccines are wasted.
“The success of this initiative would be that our clinics are full every week and that every shot we receive goes into someone’s arm to enhance public health,” Beltran said.
Vaccines will be offered at the Wellness Center on the St. Petersburg campus every Tuesday from 11:30am to 1:30pm throughout the fall semester for USF students, faculty, staff and their family members. Appointments can be scheduled by calling (727) 873-4422 and pressing option 2.