SALUBONG: Building Vaccine Confidence in the Philippines

Shannon McMahon of the Heidelberg Institute of Global Health in Germany and Mark Donal Reñosa of the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine in the Philippines will create and test an intervention based on narrative and imagery to re-establish trust in vaccinations in Western Visayas, Philippines. Confidence in the safety of vaccines has recently dropped in the Philippines, exacerbated by controversy with a dengue vaccine in 2017. The country is now facing a measles outbreak, with a 3000% increase in cases in some areas. They will develop Salubong, a program named for an important Filipino term, to improve confidence in vaccines. It is a word that means to welcome someone into one’s life. An intervention of this name is implicitly rooted in understanding and compassion, rather than in blunt scientific logic, and is expected to be effective at encouraging wary families to reconsider their views. Also an acronym for its own development, Salubong will be developed through Share Appraising (focus groups with parents and community members), Life Stories and Uncovering (in depth interviews with parents and storyboard and think-aloud exercises), Bridging and Optimizing (presentation of the results to community health workers) and Navigating and Gaining (testing of the model in urban and rural areas with measles outbreaks).