People looking for gift cards will need to get vaccinated at an APH event and fill out an exit survey, according to a memo sent from APH to the city.
The APH, an accredited health department, believes the vast majority of community members who want to be vaccinated have already gotten their shots and that many unvaccinated people are in what the APH calls the “moveable middle,” or unvaccinated people who are persuadable, according to the memo.
Before offering H-E-B cards, APH partnered with Central Health, a county-level health department, to offer other gift cards at vaccination events. Central Health will spend the rest of August analyzing more than 1,200 surveys to gauge the effectiveness of gift card incentives, although Central Health staff say attendance at events increased after making gift cards an incentive, the memo said.
The memo also pointed to states that have offered incentives. New Mexico offered $100 and saw more than three times as many people receiving a single dose, and a 26% increase in those receiving both doses. In Ohio, one week after announcing a plan to raffle off $1 million lottery prizes and five full college scholarships to people who got COVID-19 vaccines, the vaccination rate increased by 28%.
