Research

14 Jan

Posted at 18:50h in Employee News, Health, Publications, Research

Fluent Research’s Founder & President Nellie Gregorian and Executive Director William Sandy have collaborated with Critica on an article published this week in the Frontiers in Public Health Journal.

Titled, “Implications of COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy: Results of Online Bulletin Board Interviews,” the article details the results from focus groups, or “bulletin boards,” carried out to discover the nature of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and its implications.

The article was also written by Jack M. Gorman and Sara E. Gorman from Critica Inc, and David A. Scales, M.D., Ph.D. from the Department of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College.

You can read an excerpt below or check out the full article here.

Introduction:

The introduction of safe and effective vaccines that protect against the virus that causes COVID-19 has the potential to bring the pandemic under control. Unfortunately, a substantial minority of Americans are either hesitant to be vaccinated or say they will absolutely not receive one of the vaccines under any circumstances (1). Vaccine hesitancy and refusal threaten the ability to establish community (also called “herd”) immunity and therefore pose a significant risk to the public’s health (2).

Vaccine hesitancy and refusal are complex phenomena involving multiple themes and narratives (3–5). These phenomena vary by ethnic and racial groups, geographic areas, political affiliations, and a host of other demographic and cultural factors (6–12). Vaccine hesitancy and refusal have been fueled in part by misinformation and disinformation about COVID-19 that has been spread throughout traditional and social media (13–15). Misinformation about vaccines is particularly difficult to dislodge (15–17).

While survey data have provided important information about the reasons for vaccine hesitancy, direct interviews and focus groups offer the potential to reveal more nuanced factors and to place vaccine hesitancy within a larger socio-ecological context. Among the reasons cited for vaccine hesitancy in one recent focus group study are concerns with the rapid development of the vaccine and fears about long-term adverse side effects (18). The same research group found that Black focus group participants also cited mistrust of the healthcare system and racial injustice as reasons for vaccine hesitancy (18).

In the present work we conducted online focus groups, or bulletin boards, in an attempt to probe more deeply into why people are skeptical about COVID-19 vaccines. Efforts to persuade people to accept vaccination are more successful among those who are hesitant to be vaccinated but not yet fully decided against vaccination (19). One recent study did find that people who were “strongly hesitant” about vaccinations against COVID-19 could be persuaded by messages that “highlighted the personal benefits of vaccinations or directly addressed speed of developmental concerns” (20). We used an initial screener to select participants who were hesitant to receive a COVID-19 vaccine but not yet firmly decided for or against having one. Our analysis of the results was influenced by the social ecological model (21). The information gleaned from these interviews revealed several themes that we believe are important not only to understanding COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and refusal but also to larger issues facing the U.S. healthcare system.

15 Dec

Posted at 22:56h in Content, Education, Evaluation, Market Research, Publications, Research

Fluent’s Research Strategist Sofia Polo recently completed research on oral health literacy for our client Sesame Workshop that was included in an article published in the peer-reviewed California Dental Association Journal.

The article describes a series of activities through which UCLA and Sesame Street collaborated to develop and use oral health resources as part of a children’s oral health awareness campaign. Read an excerpt of some of Fluent’s findings below. You can read the rest of the study starting from page 771 on the December 2021 issue of the California Dental Association Journal.

Focus Groups:

Sesame Street organized a qualitative study using focus groups to examine dentists’, child care providers’ and parents’ current practices and perceptions of the barriers Chinese-speaking, Spanish- speaking, Korean-speaking, Black and Filipino families encounter with regard to the oral health of their young children. The focus groups also sought to solicit feedback on SSIC’s oral health resources.Research objectives included identifying stakeholders’ top priorities and concerns around the oral health of young children; exploring stakeholders’ current practices for promoting the oral health of young children and pinpointing where they learned about these practices; describing the challenges and barriers parents encounter in promoting the oral health of young children, including those unique to specific language/ethnic groups; and gathering feedback and recommendations on the SSIC resources and soliciting ideas for effective dissemination strategies to reach the specific language/ethnic groups. The focus groups consisted of 16 in-depth 45- to 60-minute individual interviews with dentists via Zoom and 13 90-minute virtual focus groups with mothers and child care providers conducted via Zoom.

Results:

During the lifetime of the campaign, the aim was to achieve the following goals across all platforms on social media:

  • Reach 10,000 users per video at minimum.
  • Achieve 25% engagement across all posts per video views.
  • Receive 20,000 views per Dentist Grover video.
  • Receive 50,000 views for Elmo’s Toothy Dance.
  • Increase followership by 50% across all platforms.
  • Recruit at least five local and/ or national partners.  

Results of the awareness campaign exceeded each of the reestablished goals, with the social media campaign generating impressive metrics within a month of the release of the fifth video (FIGURE 2) and a grand total of over 687,000 views of the five featured new videos across MLAS and SSIC websites by the conclusion of the project in December 2020. Followers increased across all social media platforms, with Facebook followers showing the highest percentage increase (112%) and Instagram having the greatest number of followers (204).

 

01 Sep

Posted at 02:30h in Employee News, Research

September 1, 2021 (New York, NY) – Fluent Research, a data and insights-driven strategic consulting firm, announced today that Allison Gilman Caplovitz, Ph.D has joined the company in the role of Director, Content Research and Evaluation. In this role, Dr. Caplovitz will oversee Fluent’s extensive media, technology, and education research on a global basis, helping the organization deliver on its mission of advancing children’s and families’ health, wellbeing, and education. She will report to Nellie Gregorian, President of Fluent Research.

“For over a decade, Fluent Research has had the privilege of collaborating with some of the best-known brands in media, technology, and education in developing age-appropriate and stimulating products and programs. We couldn’t have asked for a more experienced and talented researcher than Allison Caplovitz to lead our content research and evaluation practice,” – said Gregorian. “After her exceptional work on groundbreaking children’s media properties, Allison is uniquely qualified to provide guidance and support to content and curriculum developers in creating age-appropriate, educational and engaging products and experiences.”

Dr. Caplovitz joined Fluent Research after a distinguished career in children’s media and education. Dr. Caplovitz was instrumental to the success of an iconic children’s media property, Blue’s Clues, in her role as the Manager of Research and Development for Nickelodeon. She also served as a consultant to Fisher-Price where she assessed the efficacy of an interactive literacy product called the Power Touch. Dr. Caplovitz has authored 17 Blue’s Clues children’s books, as well as numerous academic publications.

Most recently, Dr. Caplovitz was a founder of Technology & Education Consulting Associates (TECA) where some of her notable clients included The Cartoon Network, Netflix, 9 Story, Highlights for Children, PBS Kids, Sesame Workshop, The University of Pittsburg, The Austin Independent School District, and Texas State University.

Dr. Caplovitz has her B.S. from Cornell University and earned her M.A. and Ph.D. from The University of Texas at Austin, where she still resides with her family.

About Fluent Research
Fluent Research is a data and insights-driven strategic consulting firm. Since 2006 Fluent has leveraged understanding of human behavior to help the world’s best-known brands and organizations advance worthy causes, innovate transformational products, and successfully navigate change. Fluent’s work centers around three practice areas: thought leadership research, formative research and evaluation, and social impact assessment. Fluent has applied rigorous and innovative research solutions in service of promoting children’s access to and quality of education, and gender equality in the U.S. and in over 70 countries around the world. Fluent’s creative arm, Fluent Productions, is an award-winning producer of original documentary content that harnesses the power of visual storytelling to bring attention to important issues facing our society, to build empathy and inspire action.

Contact: Ruth Aravena
[email protected]

29 Sep

Posted at 05:00h in Family Strong, Research

Today, Fluent Productions announced the launch of “Family Strong,” a short documentary series that tells the stories of five diverse families from across the U.S. as they navigate an increasingly uncertain world. As the family unit becomes a last line of defense in these difficult times, the docuseries provides an unvarnished look into the challenges facing American families and their efforts at keeping their families strong.

With social distancing rules in place, the series is entirely constructed from self-shot footage as each family turns their camera on themselves and invites viewers into their lives. The five families documenting their experiences during the pandemic represent a diverse swath of American society. Each family faces its own challenges and copes with them in their own way. A health crisis, a job loss, an interrupted college life, a move to a new community, the stress of sending kids to school in a Covid-19 hotspot — these are just a few examples of the struggles the protagonists confront, as they try to keep their families strong in the face of adversity.

To learn more, view our release calendar and meet the families, visit: FluentProductions.com/FamilyStrong.