Reducing Barriers To Vaccine Access Key For Communities of Color

By Consumers for Quality Care, on May 5, 2021

Although the effort to vaccinate America is well underway, barriers to access remain for some of the groups who have been hit the hardest by COVID-19, particularly communities of color. Delaware Public Media (DPM) recently laid out ideas to confront these challenges and make the vaccination effort more equitable.

DPM says the first point is to “recognize the barriers to equitable, quality health care.” Poor internet access or lack of convenient transportation make it harder to schedule and get to a vaccine appointment.

Finally, a successful vaccine rollout needs to “engage trusted community leaders” and “enlist trusted messengers to create and deliver the message.” Communities are more likely to trust people they know and recognize. An equitable distribution of COVID vaccines will need to capitalize on that trust.

According to Dr. Rhea Boyd, a pediatrician and public health advocate at the University of California, San Francisco and the Palo Alto Medical Foundation:

“There are two major barriers to Black folks receiving the COVID-19 vaccines. Neither one of them are ‘vaccine hesitancy.’ The barriers are accessible facts about the COVID-19 vaccines and convenient access to receive a vaccine.”