Partnering with faith leaders to build vaccine confidence

Building trust through faith: a new approach to childhood health in south east London

NHS South East London is working with Food for Purpose to promote child health and vaccinations within Black faith communities across Southwark and Lambeth.

Faith and culture play an important role in shaping health beliefs and behaviours. Recognising this, the project aims is to develop resources that are culturally relevant, spiritually informed and scientifically grounded.

A group of key opinion leaders - including lead pastors and an African Christian health visitor - helped shape this approach. Through conversation workshops and surveys with over 40 Nigerian and Ghanaian church leaders, community leaders and parents, the group identified what matters most to the community.

Key themes and recommendations:

• The vital role vaccines have played in protecting children in Africa
• How to support healthy immunity during pregnancy and childhood
• Addressing concerns about autism and the MMR vaccine
• Understanding how Christian faith and vaccinations align
• Information about other vaccines, including HPV, RSV and flu
• The connection between faith and preventive medicine
• How vaccines are developed, tested and monitored for side effects across different ethnic groups
• Hearing from Black Christian healthcare professionals during service time
• Content that reflects people’s culture, language and experiences

Building on these insights, the group co-produced a culturally relevant video that balances medical facts with the community's faith perspective.

The video was launched on 13 December 2025 at a breakfast meeting hosted by House on the Rock International Church, SE1 4TR.

The video is intended for use within Black-led Christian churches, to support:

• church-led discussions and workshops
• parent and youth education sessions
• community health events
• faith-based conversations about immunity and prevention

So far, the video has:

• had more than 100 views
• been shared by four Black‑led Pentecostal churches during services and fellowship events, reaching more than 400 people

We also received 25 feedback forms from the launch event. The response was positive:

• 100% found the video extremely helpful or very helpful in understanding childhood immunisations.
• 100% felt more confident talking about vaccines.
• 80% said their questions were addressed, while 20% still had some questions.

80% of people said their children’s immunisations were up to date (and 20% said not applicable). This indicates we were speaking to a group who already had positive views about childhood immunisations. However, many people raised concerns about the flu vaccine and side effects. This could shape future work.

Next steps

The work has helped build stronger relationships between church leaders and NHS teams. This supports long‑term engagement and future work on health across different life stages.

We will continue to share the video with Black church leaders in south east London and wider areas. We’re also exploring content and discussions on other topics such as HPV vaccination.