Coaches as an effective source for COVID-19 vaccine information

Through a unique partnership of eight organizations, community-based youth sports coaches trained as “Vaccine Ambassadors” are providing youth and parents with fact-based information about the COVID-19 vaccine. Coaches Against COVID, a program conceived of by Laureus Sport for Good USA (Laureus USA) and based in Chicago, USA, has provided an important case study for the power of coaches as trusted community liaisons capable of providing linkages to important, underutilized COVID-19 services and, in turn, reducing health inequities.

Background and program overview

In Chicago, Black and Latinx communities have been hit especially hard by COVID-19, with approximately 1.8 and 1.3 times more deaths than white communities, respectively (according to The Chicago Department of Public Health) – a situation that reflects global trends of disproportional effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on minority and marginalized populations. In the US, among people of color, vaccine hesitancy specifically and mistrust of health institutions broadly is a complex issue, and one that is rooted in experiences of institutional racism and historical health inequities. Community-based vaccine promotion and awareness solutions are required to build trust among vaccine hesitant or hard-to-reach populations.

Coaches Against COVID (CAC) is a COVID-19 vaccine awareness program in Chicago’s predominantly Black South and West Side neighborhoods. Laureus USA and five Chicago-based Sport for Development (SfD) organizations[i] initially launched the program in Fall 2021, in response to continued inequities around COVID-19-related health outcomes and vaccine access. The program trains youth sports coaches as “Vaccine Ambassadors” and seeks to leverage the relationships and trust that coaches have with their players and families to have honest and fact-based conversations about the COVID-19 vaccine.

Program implementation

Between December 2021 to June 2022, 23 coaches from four Chicago-based sports-based youth development organizations (Endless Energy Sports, 4 Point Play, Sierra Dreams, Inc., and Peace Players International) participated in three distinct phases of the pilot.

To support the facilitation of conversations with players and parents, the CAC program provided coaches with a minimum of 8 hours of in-depth training. The CAC coaches first completed a 2-hour self-paced training on becoming a Vaccine Ambassador, which was designed by Malcolm X College (one of the seven City Colleges of Chicago) and the Chicago Department of Public Health. CAC coaches then participated in weekly trainings facilitated by a registered nurse, who is from the communities where CAC is delivered and has deep work experience in infectious diseases, including COVID-19.

Participating coaches were additionally trained on how to use a “COVID Conversation Playbook,” a 5-week guide that provided coaches with structured conversations around 4 core issues:

• General COVID-19 information
• Understanding the facts about the vaccine
• Personal coach’s story about getting vaccinated
• How to access the vaccine.

The Conversation Playbook was informed by Grassroot Soccer’s SKILLZ COVID Response curriculum and sought to give coaches a simple and easy-to-use resource that they could refer to while they hosted conversations with their teams—either before, during, or after practices or on days when their teams had games.

Looking ahead

Findings from a pilot evaluation demonstrate that the CAC program provided a space for coaches and youth to discuss sensitive topics around vaccine information and hesitancy and led to improved knowledge and attitudes about the COVID-19 vaccine. Some coaches described instances in which players and parents had chosen to get the COVID-19 vaccine. As one CAC coach shared:

“The program helped me reach out to our kids and our kids’ parents. I was able to give them a lot of information that I learned from the Coaches Against COVID classes. I was able to get half my team vaccinated so far and a few of their parents as well.”

Coaches Against COVID—and many other programmatic and organizational examples from SfD globally—demonstrate that coaches have the potential to take on a larger role in community health. SfD organizations should consider creative ways they can train and deploy their coaches, mentors, and staff as non-traditional public health practitioners that can contribute to more equitable access and outcomes for their youth participants and communities.

The role that partnership building played in the success of the CAC program cannot be overlooked. Made up of funders, intermediary organizations, direct service organizations, and individual collaborators with clinical and public health backgrounds, the partners involved in CAC represented an important cross-section of organizations that each contributed their technical skills and/or community experiences and insights to achieve the project’s overall goals in a more effective and community-informed way. The resulting outcomes from the project solidified the CAC program partners’ commitment to and belief in collective work to achieve desired outcomes.

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Jamison Merrill was the lead consultant for the Coaches Against COVID program and is currently a PhD student in Community Health Sciences at University of Illinois Chicago’s School of Public Health.

Ben Schornack is the Director of Sport for Good Chicago at Laureus USA and oversaw the development and partnership selection for the Coaches Against COVID program.

To learn more about the Coaches Against COVID program or request access to the COVID Conversation Playbook, please contact Ben Schornack ([email protected]).