The first data we have on vaccination rates is incomplete, but one fact is particularly alarming: black Americans are being vaccinated at a much slower rate than their white counterparts. This is worrying, given the strength with which the pandemic has hit black Americans.
But it is also worrying because people often don’t understand why the rate is lower. Many are quick to point out the mistrust of the medical community, as blacks have a long history of being ignored or actively mistreated by health professionals in the United States – most notably, in the infamous 40-year-old Tuskegee study, which denied black men treatment for syphilis so that researchers could track the disease’s natural progression. But a recent Pew survey challenges the idea that black Americans are hesitant to get vaccinated: the majority of black adults (61 percent) told Pew that they planned to receive a COVID-19 vaccine or have already received it, a sharp increase in the 42 percent who said in November that they planned to be vaccinated.
And that reflects what the health experts have said to me on this subject. They don’t really think that distrust of the vaccine explains the big gaps we see in vaccination rates. Furthermore, blaming mistrust for the gap is dangerous because it places the burden on black Americans around vaccinations and distracts us from the real reasons why the inoculation rate is lower. “The experience of black Americans in the health care system in the United States has been extremely problematic, to say the least,” said Sean Dickson, director of health policy at the West Health Policy Center. “But we do not want to rely on the narrative that blacks are not willing to receive the vaccine,” he said, adding that he thought the real problem was the lack of investment in the distribution of the vaccine in black communities.
In fact, a recent NPR analysis found that vaccination centers, particularly those in Louisiana, Texas and Alabama, were largely absent from predominantly black and Hispanic communities, while few whiter neighborhoods lacked one. And in a national study conducted in conjunction with the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy, Dickson found that black Americans in nearly two dozen urban counties in Atlanta, New Orleans and Dallas, among a number of other cities, faced greater driving distances. even vaccine centers than white Americans.
Even when vaccine distribution centers are more evenly distributed, researchers find that communities of color are still lacking. Residents of wealthier neighborhoods, predominantly white, often claim an exaggerated share of appointments for vaccines in black and Hispanic neighborhoods, depleting the available supply. This has already happened in several states, including California, where outsiders were misusing a program designed to make vaccine markings available in communities of color.
The fact that vaccine registration systems are largely online is partly to blame, as there is often a racial divide in those who have reliable access to the Internet. See Washington, DC, where the ease of registration practically made it easier for wealthier whites to expel blacks who were trying to get an appointment. The city moved to quickly implement a new enrollment system that offered consultations first to people in CEPs with the highest rates of COVID-19 infection and mortality, but some residents said the process was not yet helping people who need the vaccine. majority.
George Jones, whose nonprofit agency in the DC area runs a medical clinic, told The New York Times that almost none of the people who came to have injections at his clinic were regular patients. “Somehow, we have to persuade them to use these points,” he said. Health experts studying medicine and health disparities warn that access to the Internet is emerging as an important determinant of health due to the growing role that the Internet plays in connecting patients to care, especially during the pandemic. “The question is, ‘Who’s really going to get the vaccines?’ – older adults who understand technology, with financial resources and family members to help them, or populations that are more difficult to reach? ”Asked Abraham Brody, professor of nursing and medicine at New York University, in an interview with Kaiser Health News.
Black Americans are also disproportionately likely to work in frontline jobs categorized as essential, meaning that it is more difficult for them to apply for leave to get the vaccine. Some states, like New York, have plans to open, or have already opened, several websites 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And Dickson told me that one thing that more cities could be doing is developing mobile or pop-up vaccination centers that are open at convenient times for people in the service industry. Some states, like Texas and New York, are already experimenting with mobile pop-up centers. And in Philadelphia, the Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium is offering vaccine clinics that do not require consultations.
President Biden’s administration is also taking more aggressive steps to achieve equality in vaccination rates. On Monday, Vice President Kamala Harris announced that the White House would invest $ 250 million in federal grants to organizations working to address gaps in COVID-19’s response. And in January, Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith was appointed to lead a new federal task force to deal with coronavirus inequalities; that same month, the White House unveiled a plan whose goals include increasing data collection on high-risk groups and providing equitable access to the vaccine. The $ 1.9 trillion economic stimulus plan is also expected to help cities and states to open more vaccine centers in black communities. Others in Biden’s orbit, including former President Barack Obama, have promised to receive their injections publicly to show that it is safe.
But perhaps most notably, Biden now said the country is “on track” to have enough coronavirus vaccines for each adult by the end of May. Experts, however, think that this will not be enough to overcome the access problems that many black Americans face. For example, the national county-level analysis conducted by Dickson and his team found that more than a third of U.S. counties had two or less types of facilities that could serve as vaccine distribution centers. “Vaccine rates are low not because people don’t want the vaccine, but because those who want it can’t get it,” said Robert Fullilove, professor of sociomedical sciences at Columbia University Medical Center.
That said, it is important to address vaccine hesitation – when it exists. But the experts I spoke with said that issues like accessibility, lack of investment in black communities and general health inequities are the biggest barriers to blacks getting the coronavirus vaccine. But those are not the only things that make everything more difficult than it should be. Nunez-Smith told the Financial Times earlier that he was concerned about disinformation about COVID-19 specifically targeting black communities. And already in the black community, some influential people shared anti-vaccine memes; there is also widespread misinformation claiming that vaccines contain microchips or cause autism (they don’t). White House officials are working with Facebook, Twitter and Google to prevent the disinformation of COVID-19 from going viral, but, as we learned in the last two presidential elections, combating disinformation – and disinformation – can be a challenge.
There is a real urgency to ensure that the racial and ethnic disparities that we see in the current launch of the vaccine are resolved quickly, especially as the United States approaches the one-year anniversary of its first blockades. But, as Dickson warned me, we must have a clear eye on what the problems are and care not to rely on an incomplete “vaccination hesitation narrative” to explain why black Americans are being vaccinated at lower rates. “The … narrative can become self-fulfilling if we assume that black Americans will be vaccinated at lower rates than white Americans, ”said Dickson. “[I]If we assume that to be the case, we are not responsible for seeing this as a problem ”.