ILC and Stripe Partners launch new initiative to gather people’s personal perspectives on vaccines in the country

As part of its Moving the needle project, ILC and Stripe Partners have launched a new “postcards” initiative aimed at gathering views on vaccines in Japan.

This initiative aims to learn about what people in Japan and beyond are hearing, seeing or thinking about the efforts to vaccinate the adult population against Covid-19 and what this might mean for flu, and other vaccinations, in the future.

These observations will be collated and shared on the project website. Contributions can be produced in a range of formats, including:

• Photographs of Covid and vaccination-related scenes
• ‘Diary’ style reflections and observations based on personal experience, conversations with friends or colleagues
• Short pieces of writing
• Video ‘blogs’ / vlogs
• Images of relevant newspapers or magazines

These ideas could respond to some of the following questions – but these are just some starting points, not constraints:

• How is vaccination of adults against Covid-19 going?
• Are these efforts seen as successful or not? Why?
• What is the national (or more local) debate about vaccination?
• How is the Covid-19 vaccination debate reflective of or different to discussion about immunisation in general?
• Is there discussion about vaccine hesitancy?
• Do you feel that Covid-19 vaccination has the potential to change the way Japanese society thinks about flu and other vaccinations e.g. pneumococcal, herpes zoster (shingles), hepatitis?
• Do people in Japan think more about vaccines when they get older, and how has Covid-19 changed this?

David Sinclair, ILC Director, said: “With the Olympics getting underway in Tokyo this week without fans, there is likely to be a lack of holiday postcards being sent to friends and family back home.

While we can’t travel to Japan right now, we’re still keen to understand what is happening with vaccinations in the country. If Covid-19 has taught us anything, it’s that vaccines are a vital health prevention measure and can help to stop serious illness and excess mortality.

But we want to know what Japanese people think about vaccines. We’re keen to see whether the pandemic has changed people’s perspectives about other routine immunisations and what the feeling is on the ground.”

Simon Roberts, Partner at Stripe Partners said: “We hope this initiative will enable us to look beyond the headlines to understand the public, and private, conversations about immunisation in Japan and how this is impacting take up”

To find out more information about the postcards initiative and the project itself, please visit our website here.

If you are interested, please email Patrick Swain with your ideas.