Advancing COVID-19 Vaccination amid Hesitancy: Integrating Policy, Determinants, and Community-Based Strategies for Equitable Uptake

The global response to COVID-19 continues to underscore the critical need for adaptable, community-sensitive public health strategies and multi-level, system-wide collaboration. For example, in the U.S., vaccine hesitancy and shifts in federal, state, and local policies have posed persistent challenges for achieving broad vaccination coverage. To address these issues, stakeholders in public health, healthcare, government, and grassroots community settings—both in the U.S. and internationally—have pursued a range of approaches to strengthen vaccination implementation and uptake, including policy adaptation, equitable distribution strategies, and culturally relevant, locally tailored communication efforts to counter mistrust, misinformation, and rapidly changing guidelines. Examining experiences from diverse U.S. settings and global contexts, including different political periods, can offer valuable comparative insights and shared lessons for future policy and practice to increase vaccination coverage and reduce the impact of COVID-19 and similar pandemics in the future. Despite coordinated efforts at the international and national levels, significant barriers—including vaccine hesitancy, misinformation, logistical hurdles, and continually changing policies—remain pervasive. There is a continued need for systematic evaluation of the effectiveness, adaptability, and sustainability of policy-informed and community-responsive strategies, including collaborations between the healthcare system and community organizations/initiatives, in the evolving context of the COVID-19 pandemic and future public health emergencies. This Research Topic aims to collect evidence from diverse U.S. and international contexts on determinants of hesitancy and acceptance, the impacts of evolving vaccination policies on implementation and uptake, and scalable intervention and communication approaches, grounded in community partnerships and local implementation experience, that support equitable vaccination distribution and broad coverage. Our goal is to document successes, identify persistent gaps, and propose adaptable, evidence-based models suitable for varied global contexts. Findings will inform public health policy and practice for vaccination campaigns, strengthening preparedness and equitable health outcomes worldwide. Suitable themes for manuscripts include, but are not limited to: 1. Factors driving vaccine hesitancy among diverse global populations and communities. 2. Impacts of evolving national and global vaccination policies on implementation and uptake strategies. 3. Case studies highlighting successful healthcare and community collaborations. 4. Cultural, socioeconomic, and behavioral factors influencing policy effectiveness and vaccine uptake worldwide. 5. International comparisons of policy-informed practices responding to changing vaccination landscapes. 6. Equitable vaccination distribution and locally implemented community-healthcare partnership strategies targeting marginalized and underserved populations. 7. Relationships between policy and communication strategies in the context of vaccine hesitancy, uptake, and misinformation. 8. Key lessons from the global COVID-19 experience informing preparedness for future infectious disease outbreaks. 9. Scalable local intervention models and community-based practices with global applicability.Topic Editor Dr. Yelba Castellon-Lopez declares that she has served as a paid consultant for Eli Lilly and Company, and Exact Sciences. Topic editors: Marielena Lara, Monica Lynn Schoch-Spana, Emily K. Brunson, Yelba M. Castellon-Lopez Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/78122/advancing-covid-19-vaccination-amid-hesitancyintegrating-policydeterminantsand-community-basedstrategies-forequitableuptake