Our Medicine Path
Listening and learning about COVID-19 vaccine misinformation and root causes of vaccine hesitancy in Indigenous communities.
The product
Our Medicine Path is an online platform for learning, sharing, and understanding Indigenous perspectives and experiences with the COVID-19 vaccine and its rollout in Canada.
Users access the tool by visiting a web address on their phone, tablet, or computer. They will explore misinformation narratives and drivers of vaccine hesitancy within Indigenous communities, told through Indigenous voices. The tool adopts a storytelling approach through which users receive helpful information about COVID-19 and vaccines from trusted Indigenous sources and are encouraged to share their own views and experiences.
Organizations, community groups, and other health champions who distribute the tool through their networks will have access to non-identifiable insights about their audience based on responses collected. Our hope is that these insights can be used by community organizations in a way that informs their own health promotion activities, service design, or other activities, as well as support prospective grant applications.
Our rationale
COVID-19 has had a strong negative impact on Indigenous communities in Canada. There is not always access to data that can inform effective solutions, and wide-spread messages about health have traditionally not prioritized Indigenous community members. In partnership with Creative Fire and Vincent Design, in-depth interviews were conducted with Indigenous health care providers and community leaders to better-understand the drivers of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Using these insights, we co-created a digital tool that addressed the health information needs of Indigenous audiences, with visual representation of the culture through the depiction of people, animals, and nature.
While one tool cannot address the diversity and complexity between and within Indigenous communities, we hope this tool is a first step in the right direction towards listening, learning, and co-creating.
The genesis
Our Medicine Path was co-created by Vincent Design, an Indigenous-led creative marketing company specializing in culturally relevant and respectful Indigenous design, and Digital Public Square, a not-for-profit that uses good technology to support healthy communities, with content guidance and input from Creative Fire, an Indigenous-owned communications and consulting firm. This project was funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada as part of their effort to address harmful vaccine misinformation narratives online.
Data Insights
We do not collect personally identifiable information (PII) on this website without a user’s consent. This means users are free to remain anonymous when they are learning with us on this platform. We give users the option to provide us with demographic information about themselves to help us understand whether we're reaching our intended audience.
Our Medicine Path seeks to engage with Indigenous folks to reflect on attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccines, their safety, how they were distributed, and the conversation around their use. Some of the key insights we aim to draw are:
- Total number of users engaging with the tool
- Likelihood of sharing information with their networks
- Vaccination status/ intent to vaccinate
- Attitudes about drivers of vaccine hesitancy
- Feedback about COVID vaccines
- Opt-in demographics (age, gender, equity deserving groups)
Get in touch!
If you think this tool could benefit your community, wish to learn more about data insights for your audiences or have any questions, you can reach us at effie@digitalpublicsquare.org!