Rapid Implementation of a Community-Academic Partnership Model to Promote COVID-19 Vaccine Equity within Racially and Ethnically Minoritized Communities.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has highlighted inequities in mortalities and associated illnesses among non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic/Latino individuals. Immunization against COVID-19 is critical to ending the pandemic, especially within racial and ethnically minoritized communities. However, vaccine hesitancy and institutional mistrust in these communities, resulting from decades of mistreatment, structural racism, and barriers to vaccination access, have translated into low vaccination uptake. Trustworthy relationships with healthcare professionals and partnerships with faith and community leaders are critical to increasing vaccination rates within these minoritized communities. Loma Linda University researchers collaborated with local faith and community organizations in San Bernardino County, CA, to rapidly implement a three-tiered approach to increase the vaccination rates within non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic/Latino communities. This community-academic partnership model provided over 1700 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine within these vaccine-hesitant, targeted minoritized communities. As over 100,000 individuals are diagnosed with COVID-19 daily and updated vaccines targeting variants of the Omicron strain are expected to rollout in the coming months, the development of sustainable programs aimed at increasing vaccine uptake within vulnerable communities are of the utmost importance.

Faith, Fear, and Facts: A COVID-19 Vaccination Hesitancy Intervention for Black Church Congregations.

BACKGROUND: Blacks are dying from the novel coronavirus of 2019 (COVID-19) at disproportionate rates and tend to have more COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy than Whites. These disparities may be attributable to health knowledge and government/medical mistrust stemming from negative experiences with the medical system historically and presently (e.g., the Tuskegee Experiment, provider maltreatment). METHOD: The present study assessed COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and the effectiveness of a 1.5 h, dialogue-based, web intervention hosted by an academic-community partnership team. The webinar included approximately 220 male and female, English speaking, Black churchgoers in the western U.S. The webinar focused on the psychology of fear and facts about the vaccine development. RESULTS: The sample was mostly females who had higher vaccine hesitancy than men. A third of participants feared hospitalization if they contracted COVID-19. Many participants reported that learning facts about COVID-19 was most impactful. Statistical analyses indicated an increased willingness to get vaccinated after the webinar in comparison to before (t(25) = -3.08, p = 0.005). CONCLUSION: The findings suggest that virtual webinars may be effective at reducing COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among Black churchgoers and may be applicable in addressing other health behaviors.

Bridging the Gap between Resources and Marginalized Families

In the United States, students from marginalized backgrounds historically have had gaps in their access to education, thus affecting success and overall achievement. In an attempt to address these educational gaps, researchers, school districts, and government officials have been working to provide resources for those in communities with low economic opportunities, with low levels of educational attainment, and overall defined as being marginalized. This article asks: How can parents and students be more effectively connected with the resources available to them? Then once they are effectively connected, the question remains: To what degree does this access improve students' and families' lives? It is of critical importance to go beyond offering resources, connecting families directly to the resources and documenting the changes that happen. Therefore, the authors implemented an innovative way to do so by incorporating community health and education workers (CHEWs) who can serve as liaisons between families, resources, and schools, providing health and educational outreach and advocacy. Informed by Maslow's hierarchy of need, they believe that what happens outside of the classroom directly impacts a child in the classroom;thus, helping parents and students to connect to resources more effectively ultimately prepares the child for success in the classroom. The article begins by describing who the community health and education workers (CHEWs) are. It goes on to describe how the authors worked with a low-income minority school district in Southern California with over 53,000 students placing CHEWs at schools in hopes of ultimately impacting education by reducing chronic absenteeism, increasing parental engagement, and increasing use of school district resources.