Managing expectations among groups not prioritised for early vaccination: a rapid summary

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Introduction

Recommendations from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, published in June 2020, set out priority groups for COVID-19 vaccination. These groups include:

1. Frontline health and social care workers
2. People at increased risk of serious illness and death from COVID-19, grouped by age and risk factors

At the time of this report (2020), the Committee was reviewing evidence relevant to the UK to provide more detail within the second priority group. Managing public expectations is important, particularly for people who are not prioritised for early vaccination.

Main points

How up to date is this evidence?

We searched for evidence 2020 and included one relevant study from 2014.

What we found

• Despite extensive searches of databases and grey literature, no UK sources or recent sources were identified.
• We identified one source relevant to the review question, a qualitative focus group study from Canada.
• Key points from the study were:
  • Clearly communicating why different groups are prioritised for vaccination may help increase public support.
  • Ensuring vaccination priorities are strictly followed may help avoid negative sentiment among non-priority groups.

What this means

This summary may help identify key points on the topic. However, the included research has not been assessed for quality and comes from a wide range of published material.

Technical information

We searched academic databases and grey literature to identify and summarise research evidence related to managing the expectations of frontline health and social care workers and people at increased risk of serious illness and death from COVID-19, grouped by age and risk factors who were not prioritised for early vaccination.