Justification for FFG_Rebrand FG 06-05-23

The Market Research emergency clearance package OMB approved in January 2021 covers a series of Foundational Focus Groups (FFGs) that examine the topics of preventive behaviors and vaccine knowledge in order to assess intent, attitudes, barriers, and motivators to vaccination. As noted within the original submission, the composition of audiences and content will change between iterations to accommodate the current state of COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccination.

As such, the focus group discussion guide is revised to include questions about the HHS We Can Do This COVID-19 Public Education Campaign brand perceptions and future COVID-19 communication preferences. The We Can Do This campaign brand was developed at the beginning of our fight against COVID-19 when public sentiment was less divided, COVID-19 was mentioned daily on every news channel and media outlet, and people were less fatigued by messages about COVID-19. At this point in the Campaign, it is important to assess and understand overall awareness and perceptions regarding the brand in order to make adjustments as we enter a new phase of the COVID-19 pandemic this fall (e.g., COVID-19 variants/severity increases, COVID-19 becomes endemic, new vaccine formula is released).

For this round, we reduced the number of focus groups and the number of participants—the study will conduct 10 focus groups composed of four to six participants per group with a variety of audiences as summarized in the table below. As in our initial submission, we propose to conduct focus groups with general population adults, Black/African American adults, and Hispanic/Latinx adults. However, we now propose to also conduct focus groups with parents of children ages 6 months through 17 years to ensure we have representation across potential target audiences for upcoming campaign efforts. Recruitment screeners are revised to reflect the updated target populations.

Approval of these changes allows the program to conduct a study consistent with the current environment in order to secure actionable insights to inform future work on the HHS ASPA COVID-19 Public Education Campaign.

	Parents of children ages 6 months through 17 years	Not Parents	Screening Notes
General Population	3	1	Mix of race/ethnicity, gender, political ideology, socioeconomic status (SES), geographic area
Latino/Hispanic	2	1	Mix of gender, political ideology, SES, geographic area; all groups will be conducted in English.
Black/African American	2	1	Mix of gender, political ideology, SES, geographic area
TOTAL	7	3	10 groups total