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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 d...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8744798/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35010795 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19010535 |
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author | Martinez, Maria Elena Nodora, Jesse N. McDaniels-Davidson, Corinne Crespo, Noe C. Edward, Amir Adolphe |
author_facet | Martinez, Maria Elena Nodora, Jesse N. McDaniels-Davidson, Corinne Crespo, Noe C. Edward, Amir Adolphe |
author_sort | Martinez, Maria Elena |
collection | PubMed |
description | 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. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8744798 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-87447982022-01-11 Equitable COVID-19 Vaccination for Hispanics in the United States: A Success Story from California Border Communities Martinez, Maria Elena Nodora, Jesse N. McDaniels-Davidson, Corinne Crespo, Noe C. Edward, Amir Adolphe Int J Environ Res Public Health Commentary 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. MDPI 2022-01-04 /pmc/articles/PMC8744798/ /pubmed/35010795 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19010535 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Commentary Martinez, Maria Elena Nodora, Jesse N. McDaniels-Davidson, Corinne Crespo, Noe C. Edward, Amir Adolphe Equitable COVID-19 Vaccination for Hispanics in the United States: A Success Story from California Border Communities |
title | Equitable COVID-19 Vaccination for Hispanics in the United States: A Success Story from California Border Communities |
title_full | Equitable COVID-19 Vaccination for Hispanics in the United States: A Success Story from California Border Communities |
title_fullStr | Equitable COVID-19 Vaccination for Hispanics in the United States: A Success Story from California Border Communities |
title_full_unstemmed | Equitable COVID-19 Vaccination for Hispanics in the United States: A Success Story from California Border Communities |
title_short | Equitable COVID-19 Vaccination for Hispanics in the United States: A Success Story from California Border Communities |
title_sort | equitable covid-19 vaccination for hispanics in the united states: a success story from california border communities |
topic | Commentary |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8744798/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35010795 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19010535 |
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