Vaccination Disparities Persist For South Carolinians of Color

By Consumers for Quality Care, on May 5, 2021

According to WIS-TV, new data from the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control shows that only 18 percent of Black South Carolinians have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine, despite comprising 27 percent of the state’s population.

A new study found nearly 60 percent of the Black population in South Carolina was unlikely to get the vaccine, but vaccine disparities in the Black community go beyond hesitancy.

“The fundamental doctor-patient relationship is very poor in these underserved communities,” Al Fasola, the CEO of ADoH Scientific, the company that performed the survey said. “You don’t have the connection on that basic, fundamental level and then you don’t have access and availability to healthcare. In many of these rural counties which represent 60 percent of the state’s African American population . . . accessibility to rural healthcare is very poor.”

African Methodist Episcopal, with more than 500 churches acrossz every county in South Carolina, is now working with Walgreens to host vaccination clinics. Bishop Samuel Green, Sr., however, wants to see a more targeted commitment.

“I strongly believe DHEC could be doing a whole better than what they’ve been doing, and the effort to get to the African American Community through the Black church needs to be a more valiant, more concerted effort,” Green said.