The Little Jab Aid: 5 Ideas to Increase COVID-19 Vaccination for Teachers in Middle East and North Africa (MENA)

"Getting as many teachers vaccinated as possible offers the best chance to safely reopen schools and ensure children's education can continue uninterrupted."

This practical tool is designed to help those leading or implementing a public health or vaccination programme to increase COVID-19 vaccination rates among teachers in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Using behavioural science, the tool explores the drivers of vaccine hesitancy according to the Socio-Ecological Model (SEM) and provides 5 evidence-based solutions. Each recommendation is accompanied by a series of questions and checklists to assist with the tailoring and contextualisation of solutions.

Inspired by The Little Jab Book (see Related Summaries, below), the Little Jab Aid (LJA) was developed through a process that involved rapid desk research, a co-creation workshop, stakeholder interviews, and user testing. For example, in response to users who noted they are not comfortable publicly showing they are using a job aid on the job, LJA is presented in the form of a notebook.

The barriers to COVID-19 vaccination uptake amongst teachers identified by countries in MENA that took part in LJA's development are grouped into environmental, social, and individual factors that may be interacting simultaneously to influence individual and collective human behaviour. For example: "Many people in the MENA region have low trust in authorities. This may be due to a history of conflict, bad experiences with the health sector or misinformation and scepticism around the motives of authorities." Thus, an intervention might be to give teachers easy and direct access to authorities via a dedicated information channel that facilitates open dialogue for questions and concerns.

The 5 interventions are meant to be feasible to implement and are all grounded in behavioural science insights globally and regionally. They work best when combined together, or with other interventions:

1. Make it easier for teachers to get vaccinated.
2. Consider vaccine mandates.
3. Support teachers to serve as peer advocates for vaccination.
4. Leverage teachers' innate sense of community responsibility.
5. Facilitate 2-way dialogue between teachers and institutions.

Alongside specific tips, various inspirational stories are included throughout to illustrate interventions in action. For example, in cooperation with the Ministry of Education and Science, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Georgia put together a team of medical experts to facilitate educational sessions on COVID-19 vaccination for medical personnel, teachers, media, religious leaders, and municipal staff. During these 2-hour sessions, the team of medical experts delivered key messages and the latest updates about COVID-19 vaccination. These sessions were complemented by a live Q&A that was addressed by local health authorities and experts. To close the intention-action gap, on-the-spot vaccination was provided by the same group of experts.