Assessing Mechanisms for Delivery of COVID-19 Vaccines to University Students

实现大学生高水平的疫苗接种率和免疫力，对于新冠肺炎感染的长效控制至关重要，迫在眉睫。混合方法将被用来调查大学生对新冠肺炎疫苗接种的态度，作为就大学参与疫苗项目提出明智建议的战略的一部分。多项研究表明，学生是新冠肺炎的高危传播者，2020年秋季学生进入校园可能是英国第二波疫情的原因之一。由于大学是一个主要的产业，有效地为学生提供疫苗对于经济复苏和打破新冠肺炎传播循环这两个相互交织的目标至关重要。大学生群体在种族、经济和地理上都是多样化的，而国际学生是学生人口中一个主要的、具有重要经济意义的子群。要开展有效的以学生为中心的新冠肺炎疫苗活动，需要清楚地了解这些不同的学生群体是如何看待疫苗的，以及疫情期间的不同经历是否会对与疫苗接种相关的决策产生负面或积极影响。莱斯特大学(UOL)提供了理想的案例研究。原因之一是联合在线位于受新冠肺炎影响最严重的城市之一。但更重要的是，UOL拥有异常多样化的学生群体，约50%拥有BAME背景，并拥有一个充满活力的国际学生社区。我们的目标是向目前UOL学生队列中的很大一部分人提供以疫苗为重点的调查问卷，同时确保覆盖一系列具有代表性的国内和国际学生。然后，我们将对特定的小组进行40-80次后续的半结构化访谈。其中一组调查问题将集中在对新冠肺炎疫苗有效性和可及性的了解，以及作为比较者对预防脑膜炎、麻疹和腮腺炎至关重要的疫苗的了解。另一组问题将集中在疫苗的自满和犹豫上。作为一个较年轻的群体，学生可能不太倾向于接种疫苗，因为他们认为新冠肺炎患重病的风险较低。此外，作为数字原住民，学生相对更有可能接触到社交媒体上流传的关于新冠肺炎疫苗的虚假信息，例如关于接种疫苗会导致女性不育的神话。最后一个问题集和采访将审查大流行的经历。这些方面将聚焦于与新冠肺炎相关的基于种族的歧视或纯粹因为是大学城的学生而遇到的偏见，以及长期封锁对福祉和个人自由的不利影响。还将有关于学生接触到媒体对疫情报道的面试问题。这些因素都可能会影响学生对新冠肺炎疫苗接种的评价，认为这是一种回归疫情前“正常”生活的方式。作为天生的流动人口和流动人口，大学生可能是新冠肺炎疫苗接种计划难以接触到的群体之一。在与英国公共卫生组织和其他利益攸关方协商后，我们将利用调查问卷和采访中的证据，制定适用于整个大学部门的新冠肺炎疫苗交付建议。我们的想法的适用性将在ESRC对一个多合作伙伴、多机构项目的后续申请中进一步探索，该项目旨在评估不同学生群体和一系列机构(即不同规模、类型和地区的大学)对新冠肺炎疫苗的接种和交付机制。这项申请还将解决重要的长期目标，即制定向本科生提供疫苗的有效政策，这是所有高等教育机构都可以实现的。

Achieving a high level of vaccine coverage and immunity among university students is urgent and critical for the long-term control of COVID-19 infections. Mixed methodologies will be used to survey university students' attitudes to COVID-19 vaccination as part of a strategy to develop informed recommendations on university involvement in vaccine programmes. Multiple studies indicate that students are high-risk spreaders of COVID-19 with students' arrival on campus in the autumn of 2020 likely to have contributed to the second wave of the pandemic in the UK. With universities being a major industry, effective delivery of vaccines to students is essential for the inter-twined goals of economic recovery and breaking COVID-19 transmission cycles.University student cohorts are ethnically, economically and geographically diverse with international students being a major, economically-important sub-set of the student population. Delivery of effective student-centred COVID-19 vaccine campaigns will require a clear understanding of how these different student groups perceive the vaccines and whether differing experiences during the pandemic will negatively or positively impact on decisions relating to vaccine uptake. The University of Leicester (UoL) provides an ideal case study. One reason is because UoL is located in one of the cities worst affected by COVID-19. But more importantly, UoL has an exceptionally diverse student population with ~50% having BAME backgrounds and boasts a vibrant international student community.We aim to deliver a vaccine-focussed questionnaire to a large-proportion of the current UoL student cohort whilst making sure of representative coverage of a range of home and international students. We will then conduct 40-80 follow-up semi-structured interviews with specific sub-groups. One set of survey questions will focus on knowledge of the effectiveness and accessibility of COVID-19 vaccines and, as comparators, vaccines that are critical for protection against meningitis, measles and mumps. Another set of questions will focus on vaccine complacency and hesitancy. As a younger age group, students may be less inclined to take up vaccines because of perceptions of a lower risk of falling seriously ill with COVID-19. Moreover, as digital natives, students are comparatively more likely to be exposed to disinformation about COVID-19 vaccines circulating on social media, such as the myth that vaccination leads to female infertility. A final question set and the interviews will examine pandemic experiences. These aspects will focus on COVID-19-related discrimination based on race and ethnicity or prejudice encountered purely on the basis of being a student in a university town, along with the detrimental impact of prolonged lockdowns on wellbeing and individual freedom. There will also be interview questions about students' exposure to media coverage of the pandemic. These factors may all shape students' evaluation of COVID-19 vaccination as a way of returning to 'normal', pre-pandemic life.As an inherently mobile and transient population, university students may be among the hard-to-reach groups for COVID-19 vaccination programmes. In consultation with Public Health England and other stakeholders, we will utilise evidence from our questionnaires and interviews to develop COVID-19 vaccine-delivery recommendations that will be applicable across the entire university sector. The applicability of our ideas will be further explored in a follow-on ESRC application for a multi-partner, multi-institutional project to evaluate COVID-19 vaccine uptake and delivery mechanisms among different student groups and a range of institutions (i.e. universities of differing sizes, types and parts of the country). This application will also address the important long-term goal of developing effective policies on vaccine delivery to undergraduate students that are achievable by all higher educational institutions.