Denver Health text message campaign boosts kids’ flu vaccination rates by 63% in Black communities

Joshua T.B. Williams, a general pediatrician at Denver Health [and associate professor of pediatrics], led the randomized clinical trial involving 200 children and 198 caregivers from two safety-net clinics in Denver’s Five Points and Northeast Park Hill neighborhoods. The study recruited caregivers with children aged 6 months to 5 years old between September 2024 and March 2025. “We are in a severe influenza season where we are seeing a lot of hospitalizations, already seeing deaths in children and adults,” Williams said. “It’s a timely study for the current moment.”