Implementation Research: Simple Text Reminders Help Increase Vaccine Uptake

This transcript has been edited for clarity. 

Hello. I’m Dr Maurie Markman, from City of Hope. I would like to briefly discuss a very interesting paper that appeared in Nature in July 2024, titled, “Megastudy Shows That Reminders Boost Vaccination but Adding Free Rides Does Not.” 

Obviously, the paper has a provocative title. I will say first, I think this is really an excellent example of what one might call implementation research, or quite frankly, what might work and what might not work in terms of having a very pragmatic goal. In this case, it was how do we get people to receive vaccinations. 

This specific study looked at individuals who were scheduled to receive or were candidates to receive COVID-19 booster vaccinations. The question came up of if you gave them free rides to the location — this is obviously a high-risk population — would that increase the vaccination rate vs the other item that they were looking at here, which was potentially texting them to remind them?

The study very importantly and relevantly demonstrated, quite nicely, that offering free rides did not make a difference, but sending texts to remind them in fact increased the 30-day vaccination rate in this population by 21%. 

Again, it was a very pragmatic question that the trial addressed, and one might use this information in the future to increase the vaccination rate of a population where it is critical to do so. This type of research, in my opinion, should be encouraged, which involves looking at very pragmatic questions and answering what is the optimal and most cost-effective way of doing it. 

I encourage you to look at this paper if you’re interested in this topic. I thank you for your attention.