The Laboratory of Data Discovery for Health (D²4H) has been one of the Vaccine Confidence Fund (VCF) grant recipients to work on research on the best use of social media and online platforms to better understand as well as increase vaccination confidence and uptake.

The current suboptimal uptake of COVID-19 vaccines across East or Southeast Asia has starkly shown that vaccine hesitancy is a key impediment to the control of vaccine-preventable diseases (VPDs) despite unprecedented advances in medical technologies. To tackle the tremendous challenges in overcoming vaccine hesitancy in the context of a world-devastating pandemic and resurgences fueled by the Delta variant of COVID-19, the D²4H given the funding support from the VCF will embark on a research project that aims to develop and evaluate conversational artificial intelligence (AI) service on communication platforms for users to obtain accurate and personalised vaccine information synchronously to assess the veracity of vaccine information in Asia.

The above project will be led by the D²4H’s Lead Scientist Professor Joseph Wu who is currently working on the integration of AI and digital influencer platforms to address global vaccine hesitancy. Global Impact is a non-profit organisation based in the United States which partners with international charities and together with members of its alliance has launched the VCF to support targeted research improving vaccination confidence and uptake.

For details of the VCF award: https://vaccineconfidencefund.org/vcf-grants-awarded/
More about the VCF: https://charity.org/give-global-blog/launching-vaccine-confidence-fund-facebook-and-merck