In early August, Ken Banta launched the Vanguard Vaccination Project in partnership with Glenna Brooks and Sherry Fox of Global Vaccination Advisors. Ken, Glenna and Sherry leveraged their leadership expertise — and their skills at asking the right questions of other experts — to produce a tool kit of free resources for leaders working to overcome vaccine resistance and get us past the pandemic.

The kit includes short video and podcast interviews with an incredible range of experts, along with articles and downloadable materials that will help you help your workforce and community — without having to reinvent the wheel. 

One of those experts is John Moore, Board Chair and CEO of Atria Senior Living. Atria was the first senior care company to mandate the vaccine, achieving nearly 100% immunization rates in employees and residents. As John puts it to Ken,

No one wants to take a vaccine if you don't have to. Why would you? The reality is, though, that people respond to leadership.

 — John Moore, CEO and Chairman, Atria Senior Living

Another expert, Art Caplan, said he hoped aggressive outreach would be enough to quash misguided beliefs, but added that it’s not the only option.

There are strong mandates — you do it, or you get fired — and that actually is what we do with our mandates in healthcare: You get fired. And we've litigated them and won them. Those precedents are out there already.

— Arthur Caplan, Founding Director, Division of Medical Ethics 

NYU Langone Medical Center

Beyond possible mandates, though, it’s crucial that the right messages get delivered in the right way to the right people, as several Project experts argue. One seemingly obvious rule that’s easy to overlook: know your audience. Heidi Larson, Director of the Vaccine Confidence Project, told Ken, “We tend to think if people don't sign up for vaccines, they're ‘anti-vax,’ and that's really not what's going on in a number of cases.”

And Casey Albertson, a psychographics expert, has identified five segments of the population with very different priorities. His analysis has major implications for how to influence any large group around vaccination.

When we looked at these factors, there's some clear things that could have an impact, and there's clear things that likely won’t have an impact.

— Casey Albertson, President, Patient Bond

Watch the video below for more on the Vanguard Vaccination Project, or go to the Project's homepage.