Neighborhood Factors Associated with COVID-19 Cases in California.

BACKGROUND: There is a need to assess neighborhood-level factors driving COVID-19 disparities across racial and ethnic groups. OBJECTIVE: To use census tract-level data to investigate neighborhood-level factors contributing to racial and ethnic group-specific COVID-19 case rates in California. DESIGN: Quasi-Poisson generalized linear models were used to identify neighborhood-level factors associated with COVID-19 cases. In separate sequential models for Hispanic, Black, and Asian, we characterized the associations between neighborhood factors on neighborhood COVID-19 cases. Subanalyses were conducted on neighborhoods with majority Hispanic, Black, and Asian residents to identify factors that might be unique to these neighborhoods. Geographically weighted regression using a quasi-Poisson model was conducted to identify regional differences. MAIN MEASURES: All COVID-19 cases and tests reported through January 31, 2021, to the California Department of Public Health. Neighborhood-level data from census tracts were obtained from American Community Survey 5-year estimates (2015-2019), United States Census (2010), and United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. KEY RESULTS: The neighborhood factors associated with COVID-19 case rate were racial and ethnic composition, age, limited English proficiency (LEP), income, household size, and population density. LEP had the largest influence on the positive association between proportion of Hispanic residents and COVID-19 cases (- 2.1% change). This was also true for proportion of Asian residents (- 1.8% change), but not for the proportion of Black residents (- 0.1% change). The influence of LEP was strongest in areas of the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and San Diego. CONCLUSION: Neighborhood-level contextual drivers of COVID-19 burden differ across racial and ethnic groups.

Development of an At-Home COVID-19 Test Results-Reporting System for a School District Primarily Serving Underrepresented Minority Groups, San Diego, CA, 2021-2022.

School-sponsored at-home COVID-19 testing benefits users, school administrators, and surveillance efforts, although reporting results remains challenging. Users require simple systems with tailored posttest guidance, and administrators need timely positive test information. We built a system to serve these needs and to collect data for our Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics-Underserved Populations Return to School Program study in San Diego County, California, from October 2021 through January 2022. We describe this system and our participant outreach strategies and outline a replicable model for at-home results reporting. (Am J Public Health. 2022;112(S9):S883-S886. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2022.307073).

Addressing COVID-19 vaccination equity for Hispanic/Latino communities by attending to aguantarismo: A Californian US-Mexico border perspective.

With an eye to health equity and community engagement in the context of the initial COVID-19 vaccine roll-out, the COVID-19-related concerns of the Latinx (Hispanic/Latino) community in southern San Diego (California, USA) were examined using 42 rapid, ethnographically-informed interviews and two focus groups conducted in early-mid 2021. An anthropologically oriented qualitative analysis delimited the cultural standpoint summarized as aguantarismo, which celebrates human durability in the face of socioeconomic hardship and the capacity to abide daily life's challenges without complaint. After characterizing aguantarismo, its role in both undermining and supporting vaccine uptake is explored. To avoid diverting attention from the structural factors underlying health inequities, the analysis deploys the theoretical framework of critical medical anthropology, highlighting inequities that gain expression in aguantarismo, and the indifference toward vaccination that it can support. In placing critical medical anthropology into conversation with the cultural values approach to public health, the analysis sheds new light on the diversity of human strategies for coping with infectious disease and uncovers new possibilities for effective vaccination promotion. Findings will be useful to public health experts seeking to convert non-vaccinators and optimize booster and pediatric COVID-19 vaccine communications. They will also contribute to the literature on cultural values in relation to Hispanic/Latino or border health more broadly, both by confirming the vital flexibility of cultural standpoints like aguantarismo and by documenting in situ what is to the social science and health literature, albeit not to cultural participants, a novel constellation.

Brachytherapy utilization for cervical cancer in Western United States border counties: seeking to understand referral patterns for outcome improvement.

PURPOSE: Standard of care for definitive treatment of locally advanced cervical cancer (LACC) is concurrent chemoradiation followed by a brachytherapy boost. Only 55.8% of women in the United States receive brachytherapy, with even lower proportions in San Diego and Imperial Counties. The purpose of this study was to investigate brachytherapy practice and referral patterns in Western United States border region. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A short survey was sent to 28 radiation oncologists in San Diego and Imperial Counties, who treat patients with gynecologic malignancies. Descriptive statistics were used for analysis. RESULTS: Seventeen (61%) physicians responded to the survey. All physicians reported some training in cervical cancer brachytherapy during residency, with median 6 months. Only two physicians reported personally treating all cervical cancer patients with brachytherapy; however, 92% of remaining physicians would recommend brachytherapy for patients if given time and access. The most common reason for referral (78%) was patients deemed to require hybrid or interstitial brachytherapy implants. Barriers to referral included patients' preference, insurance status, their resources, or logistics. No changes were reported for brachytherapy practices during the COVID-19 pandemic, except the addition of pre-procedural testing for SARS-CoV-2. Ninety-two percent of physicians identified inadequate maintenance of skills as a barrier to performing brachytherapy, but 77% were not interested in additional training. External beam radiation therapy boosts were rarely recommended in case scenarios describing potentially curable patients. CONCLUSIONS: The importance of brachytherapy is widely recognized for conferring a survival benefit, but barriers to implementation include inadequate training or maintenance of skills, and larger systematic issues related to reimbursement policy, social support, and financial hardship. As most established providers were uninterested in additional brachytherapy training, future approaches to improve patients' access should be multidimensional and reflect the value of brachytherapy in definitive treatment of patients with LACC.

Equitable COVID-19 Vaccination for Hispanics in the United States: A Success Story from California Border Communities.

The ongoing 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic continues to impact the health of individuals worldwide, including causing pauses in lifesaving cancer screening and prevention measures. From time to time, elective medical procedures, such as those used for cancer screening and early detection, were deferred due to concerns regarding the spread of the infection. The short- and long-term consequences of these temporary measures are concerning, particularly for medically underserved populations, who already experience inequities and disparities related to timely cancer care. Clearly, the way out of this pandemic is by increasing COVID-19 vaccination rates and doing so in an equitable manner so that communities most affected receive preferential access and administration. In this article, we provide a perspective on vaccine equity by featuring the experience of the California Hispanic community, who has been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. We first compared vaccination rates in two United States-Mexico border counties in California (San Diego County and Imperial County) to counties elsewhere in California with a similar Hispanic population size. We show that the border counties have substantially lower unvaccinated proportions of Hispanics compared to other counties. We next looked at county vaccination rates according to the California Healthy Places Index, a health equity metric and found that San Diego and Imperial counties achieved more equitable access and distribution than the rest of the state. Finally, we detail strategies implemented to achieve high and equitable vaccination in this border region, including Imperial County, an agricultural region that was California's epicenter of the COVID-19 crisis at the height of the pandemic. These United States-Mexico border county data show that equitable vaccine access and delivery is possible. Multiple strategies can be used to guide the delivery and access to other public health and cancer preventive services.