Vaccination Hesitancy In The Aboriginal Community Essay Paper
Vaccine hesitancy is the psychological issue of difficulty in acceptance of a vaccine and doubts of agreement. Vaccine hesitation is an issue among the aboriginal communities because they do not have proper education or information about the virus and they are less active, these people follow their culture and tradition without much involvement in the developing world. The Indigenous people living on the mainland of Australia and its islands, like Tasmania, Tiwi Island, and Fraser Island are the Aboriginal Australians (Stylemanual, 2021). In this essay, vaccine hesitancy is discussed to learn about the issues faced by the aboriginal communities of Australia, with the key characteristics. The next section shows the strength-based approach and the role of the healthcare nurse with the community to educate them about the vaccine and how this will be beneficial to them Vaccination Hesitancy In The Aboriginal Community Essay Paper.
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The people from the Aboriginal community are still living in rural areas and are not connected to the world properly. The aboriginal community follows their old culture and traditional ways of living (Ko+mesaroff et al., 2021). These communities are not connected to government, cities, the Internet, or education. Thus, the lack of information regarding the happenings of the world. In a pandemic like COVID-19, they are the most who suffered because they have no access to the vaccine and other healthcare facilities (Attwell, Hannah & Leask, 2022). During the pandemic, people of this community had the least information regarding the availability and requirement of a vaccine. During public health emergencies, Indigenous people are at disproportionate risk and experience socio-economic marginalization. This discrimination became vulnerable during the pandemic; they had a lack of access to adequate health, early-warning systems, and effective monitoring.
The Aboriginal people hold their varied concepts about their development, created with their traditional visions, values, priorities, and needs. The characteristics of a community make them recognizable in the world. The key characteristics of the Aboriginal community include their different economic, political, and social system; different language, and varied beliefs and cultures; these people are strongly linked with their surrounding natural resources, and territories; this community is society’s non-dominant group; also, they are firm to maintain and reproduce the ancestral system and environment as distinctive communities and people (Gomersall, et al., 2015). Overall, their family, ceremony, language, law, and land are all interconnected in their culture. Vaccination Hesitancy In The Aboriginal Community Essay Paper
Vaccine hesitancy is an essential topic for people of the aboriginal community as they had a sudden exposure to the event of a pandemic and they were not sure about intake of the vaccine because they assumed it will make them suffer more, may cause death, or affect their community strength in negative consequences (Danchin & Buttery, 2021). Due to scenarios like this, they are facing issues in connecting with the healthcare and lack of connection harming their community and their living. Many people in the community are a bit connected to the world but they hesitate to connect to any healthcare because of the discrimination and racism they face from many doctors or healthcare. Situations like these increased during the vaccination in this community, which contributed to hesitation (Reilly, Adams & Rees, 2021). Due to this vaccine hesitation, this community was highly affected and experienced a high count of deaths (Danchin et al., 2020). Due to continuing issues of COVID like alpha variant, beta variant, and Delta variant people of these communities are facing the situation of diseases without any knowledge of the precaution from the diseases and lack of access to the medicines or vaccination, they are suffering too harsh.
Strategies To Address Vaccine Hesitancy In The Aboriginal Community
A survey of the 3000 people was conducted for checking the hesitancy level and percentage among the people. From the overall survey, 59% of people are taking the vaccination dose and 29% of people are facing low hesitancy; 7% of people have a high level of hesitancy and 6 people are just resistant and opposing the dose (Burden, Henshall & Oshikanlu, 2021)Vaccination Hesitancy In The Aboriginal Community Essay Paper. Peoples with cultural, and religious thoughts from the Aboriginal community are the first lines who are resisting the vaccination. To improve this percentage, the government of Australia must implement strategies and approaches to handle their beliefs and encourage them to take the vaccination. While handling this, the nurse also uses proper norms and their culture without any form of discrimination or disrespect. Behavior traits and mindset of Aboriginals’ should be understood for proper application of the plan (Burden, Henshall & Oshikanlu, 2021). Also, proper access to vaccination in their locations should be managed. Vaccine availability is the highest issue and managing these things is the top priority of the government. Avail proper doses and management of this is necessary to manage things.
According to an article from Internal Medical Journal, published in 2021, the Aboriginal community’s vaccination rate was very low and for removing the COVID-19 restrictions, NSW Government proposed a 70% vaccination rate for the adult population. The risk of death and serious illness among the Aboriginal group is greater than the non-indigenous population. The effectiveness of the vaccination programs is hindered in the aboriginal community because of demographic structure and the current workforce crisis. 90-95% population of Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islanders community is above 16-years of age and is eligible for vaccination; workforces also require a supply of vaccines, appropriate incentives for addressing the problem of hesitancy among the community, and enhancing the capacity of the workforce (Komesaroff et al., 2021).
Nurses play an essential role in the healthcare sector and are even the backbone of healthcare. Nurses faced equal difficulty as the doctors or even more because in the pandemic when there is no vaccine available then nurses are the ones who provide the best care to the patients and tried their best to make things work with the limited resources (Berry et al., 2021). Nurses showed the practices of care and responsibility for the people who suffer.
At the time of COVID, communal nurses had the responsibility of educating people and making them understand that the vaccine is safe and non-reactive (Harrison et al., 2021). They showed their knowledge and confidence to the patients and the public to not hesitate from the vaccine. Aboriginal Community people have different rituals and traditions and have the least interaction with people from the city. In making positive contact with them there is a need to make sure everything will work properly and a positive approach is used to interact with them without making any wrong interpretations (Swann et al., 2022)Vaccination Hesitancy In The Aboriginal Community Essay Paper.
Nurses can work with the aboriginal community in partnership. The role of nurses in improving this issue of vaccine hesitancy is very crucial because by providing knowledge till vaccination, only nurses are the ones who can perform different roles and improve the condition of the Aboriginal community (Nickitas, 2021). Nurses have clarity about their responsibility for the best effect of the vaccine or prevention of the diseases. These responsibilities are handled by community nurses; these nurses practice their services in general practice facilities, including police custody, at homes, and community hospitals, and not in hospitals. Community nurses develop confidence for vaccination in the aboriginal community people and help to educate them about the vaccine process and its benefits, then the process could be completed much more easily.
The Role Of Nurses In Improving Vaccine Hesitancy In The Aboriginal Community
Vaccine hesitancy in the aboriginal communities is too high and to handle the issue nurses should take different approaches which they need to engage with these hesitant communities (Jarrett et al., 2015). The strategy for community engagement and approach can empower the community and show faith in the community. This leader will show the trustworthiness of the nurses and try the take the community peoples trust so that they could be convinced for the vaccination. Some more sources and live vaccination sessions may also need to be conducted to guarantee them and inform how this will work for them and why this is important in this pandemic. In Linguistically and Culturally Diverse (LCD) communities’ proper engagement is very important so that barriers like hesitation could be removed (Baniak et al., 2021).
The strength-based care is one of the approaches applied as its focus on what is functioning and working well, the resources available, and their effective use in dealing with patients’ life, healthcare challenges, and health. The strength-based nursing is also an approach to care that guides nursing action with eight core values for promoting hope, self-efficacy, and empowerment in patients. SBC is about capitalizing, mobilizing, and developing the strength of a person for promoting health and healthcare, and providing healing (Gottlieb, Gottlieb, & Shamian, 2012)Vaccination Hesitancy In The Aboriginal Community Essay Paper.
While taking action and promoting vaccination to the community, providing a benefit-framed massage should be more effective than showing the fear. Presenting the benefits like freedom to disease, freedom to live without any fear, to live freely without any lockdown, and because aboriginal peoples are always free to live as per their conditions than benefits presented to them must be a bit different like they get better access to cities and even government help them to situate much properly in the cities (newsGP, 2022). These types of engagement campaigns are not conducted in the starting while spreading vaccines but some businesses and non-government organizations showed some advertisements then these steps are taken but still there are many more that need to be addressed.
Broad campaigns with a strength-based approach are necessary, but there is a need to manage the communication that brings into the light worldviews and values of specific hesitant communities and individuals to increase the level of motivation towards the vaccination. WHO (world health programs) tailoring programs have the proper chart of a mixed approach to drive the barriers to vaccine uptake (Kwok et al., 2021). These strategies are effective while tackling the aboriginal community’s communication and healthcare barriers. Nurses should be prepared to deal with people who don’t want to get vaccinated. An anti-vaccination faith can be based on: (a) high conspiracy thinking; (b) high reaction; (c) reported disapproval for blood as well as needles; (d) specific understanding of world views (Peretti, Watel et al., 2019).
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Thus, the aboriginal community peoples are not very social or active towards any government, and globalization and still living in the town and harsh rural areas are the community who needs to be highlighted. These people are living there but they have no access to any vaccination or if they have then their norms and beliefs are the main issue. Due to this they are losing their population number and facing difficult times. To handle this issue nurses, have the high priority role to educate them on the reason and importance of the vaccination and save their lives. Adopting the engagement plan and strength-based approach with the aboriginal community proper communication is required to gain their trust and prepare them to take the vaccination. Many things should be addressed like the behavior traits, and vaccination access to them so that proper vaccination could be done for saving their lives.
References
Al Thobaity, A., & Alshammari, F. (2020). Nurses on the Frontline against the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Integrative Review. Dubai Medical Journal, 3(3), 87-92. https://doi.org/10.1159/000509361
Ann, M. (2018). Immunizations – Nursing Interventions to Enhance Vaccination Rates. Journal of Pediatric Nursing. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pedn.2018.06.009
Attwell, K., Hannah, A., & Leask, J. (2022). COVID-19: talk of ‘vaccine hesitancy’lets governments off the hook. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-00495-8
Baniak, L. M., Luyster, F. S., Raible, C. A., McCray, E. E., & Strollo, P. J. (2021). COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and uptake among nursing staff during an active vaccine rollout. Vaccines, 9(8), 858. https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines9080858
Berry, S. D., Johnson, K. S., Myles, L., Herndon, L., Montoya, A., Fashaw, S., & Gifford, D. (2021). Lessons learned from frontline skilled nursing facility staff regarding COVID?19 vaccine hesitancy. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 69(5), 1140-1146. https://doi.org/10.1111/jgs.17136
Burden, S., Henshall, C., & Oshikanlu, R. (2021). Harnessing the nursing contribution to COVID?19 mass vaccination programmes: Addressing hesitancy and promoting confidence. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 77(8), e16-e20. https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.14854
Danchin, M., & Buttery, J. (2021). COVID?19 vaccine hesitancy: a unique set of challenges. Internal medicine journal, 51(12), 1987-1989. https://doi.org/10.1111/imj.15599
Danchin, M., Biezen, R., Manski-Nankervis, J. A., Kaufman, J., & Leask, J. (2020). Preparing the public for COVID-19 vaccines: How can general practitioners build vaccine confidence and optimise uptake for themselves and their patients? Australian journal of general practice, 49(10), 625-629. https://doi:10.3316/informit.425782044847580 Vaccination Hesitancy In The Aboriginal Community Essay Paper