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

在大学生中实现高水平的疫苗覆盖率和免疫力对于长期控制COVID-19感染至关重要。将采用混合方法调查大学生对COVID-19疫苗接种的态度，作为制定有关大学参与疫苗计划的明智建议的战略的一部分。多项研究表明，学生是COVID-19的高风险传播者，学生于2020年秋季抵达校园可能导致英国第二波疫情。由于大学是一个主要的产业，有效地向学生提供疫苗对于实现经济复苏和打破COVID-19传播周期的跨世纪目标至关重要。要开展有效的以学生为中心的COVID-19疫苗接种活动，就需要清楚地了解这些不同的学生群体如何看待疫苗，以及大流行期间的不同经历是否会对疫苗接种相关决策产生负面或正面影响。莱斯特大学（UoL）提供了一个理想的案例研究。其中一个原因是UoL位于受COVID-19影响最严重的城市之一。但更重要的是，UoL拥有非常多样化的学生群体，其中约50%具有BAME背景，并拥有一个充满活力的国际学生社区。我们的目标是向当前UoL学生群体中的大部分学生提供以疫苗为重点的问卷调查，同时确保代表性覆盖一系列国内和国际学生。然后，我们将对特定的小组进行40-80次后续半结构化访谈。其中一组调查问题将侧重于对COVID-19疫苗的有效性和可及性的了解，以及作为对照的对预防脑膜炎、麻疹和腮腺炎至关重要的疫苗。另一组问题将集中在疫苗的自满和犹豫。作为一个较年轻的年龄组，学生可能不太愿意接种疫苗，因为他们认为患上COVID-19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传播的有关COVID-19疫苗的虚假信息，例如接种疫苗会导致女性不孕的神话。最后一个问题集和访谈将考察大流行的经验。这些方面将集中于基于种族和民族的COVID-19相关歧视或纯粹基于作为大学城学生而遇到的偏见，沿着长期封锁对福祉和个人自由的不利影响。此外，还将有关于学生接触媒体大流行报道的采访问题。这些因素都可能影响学生对COVID-19疫苗接种的评价，认为这是恢复“正常”、大流行前生活的一种方式。作为一个固有的移动的和短暂的人口，大学生可能是COVID-19疫苗接种计划难以覆盖的群体之一。在与英格兰公共卫生部和其他利益相关者协商后，我们将利用问卷调查和访谈中的证据，制定适用于整个大学部门的COVID-19疫苗接种建议。我们的想法的适用性将在后续ESRC申请中进一步探索，该申请是一个多合作伙伴、多机构项目，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）之间的COVID-19疫苗接种和输送机制。这项申请还将涉及制定有效的政策，向本科生提供疫苗，这是所有高等教育机构都可以实现的重要长期目标。

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.