COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy Radio Campaign – GeoPoll Impact Measurement

The Life-saving Public Health and Vaccine Communication at Scale in sub-Saharan Africa, or VACS, project aimed to support COVID-19 prevention efforts, increase vaccine confidence and vaccination rates and further gender equality.

In order to quantify the impact of Farm Radio International’s VACs project, Farm Radio worked with GeoPoll to run a survey in a sample of 8 of the sixteen countries impacted by the project: Zambia, Ghana, Uganda, Nigeria, Malawi, Kenya, Mozambique and Tanzania. This information allowed us to measure the impact of the radio campaigns that were aimed at reducing COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. 

Within the targeted regions, the partner stations covered at least half the population across all the countries.

Through our 215 partner radio stations, we estimate that we had a potential coverage of 86 million people (about 400,000 potential listeners per station according to our latest studies), with an estimate of 66.2 million men, women and youth listeners to our gender-responsive and interactive radio campaigns. 49% of listeners were women, representing 32.7 million. 

According to our GeoPoll survey conducted in 8 of the countries of implementation, 77% of men and women listeners as well as 74% of youth decided to get vaccinated against COVID-19. If we compare those scores to non-listeners, we can observe an increase of 13% for women, 11% for men and 12% for youth in terms of health-seeking behavior, in this case, vaccination. It’s also important to note that 82% of women, 81% of men and 80% of youth interviewed indicated that it was the radio campaign that encouraged them to get vaccinated.

Farm Radio International acknowledges that since the survey was conducted via SMS, the respondents don’t necessarily reflect the realities of marginalized groups as it limits access to those who have access to and control of a mobile phone and know how to use it properly. 

This research was conducted by GeoPoll under Farm Radio International’s Public Health and Vaccine Communication at Scale project, funded by the Government of Canada.

This research was not conducted by the Government of Canada.

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