IMPORTANCE Black and Latinx communities have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, yet little work has sought to understand their perspectives.OBJECTIVE To explore the experiences of Black and Latinx communities during the pandemic to better understand their perspectives on COVID-19 mitigation behaviors (eg, mask wearing), testing, and vaccines. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTSIn this community-engaged qualitative study conducted with 18 community-based organizations and 4 health care organizations between November 19, 2020, and February 5, 2021, in New Jersey counties severely affected by the pandemic, group and individual interviews were used to purposively sample 111 Black and Latinx individuals. A total of 13 group interviews were organized by race/ethnicity and language: 4 English-speaking groups with Black participants (n = 34), 3 Spanish-speaking groups with Latinx participants (n = 24), and 4 English-speaking groups with Black and Latinx participants (n = 36). To understand the views of health care workers from these communities, 2 additional groups (n = 9) were convened and supplemented with individual interviews. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Description of Black and Latinx participants' experiencesduring the COVID-19 pandemic and their perspectives on mitigation behaviors, testing, and vaccines. RESULTSThe study included 111 participants (87 women [78.4%]; median age, 43 years [range, 18-93 years]). Participants described the devastating effects of the pandemic on themselves, loved ones, and their community. Their experiences were marked by fear, illness, loss, and separation. These experiences motivated intense information seeking, mitigation behaviors, and testing. Nevertheless, vaccine skepticism was high across all groups. Participants did not trust the vaccine development process and wanted clearer information. Black participants expressed that they did not want to be subjects of experiments. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCEThe remaining unknowns about new vaccines need to be acknowledged and described for Black and Latinx communities to make informed decisions.Ultimately, scientists and public officials need to work transparently to address unanswered questions and work collaboratively with trusted community leaders and health professionals to foster partnered approaches, rather than focusing on marketing campaigns, to eliminate vaccine skepticism.

In-depth interviews allow for rich exploration of stakeholders' experiences. Preparation for in-depth interviews generally consists of literature reviews and researchers' review of their own culture and understanding of a topic. We supplemented these strategies with serial "ethnographic interviews" with a single community leader to enhance our preparation for community-based in-depth interviews with Latina, immigrant, Spanish-speaking mothers and to facilitate stakeholder engagement in a research project. After an extensive literature review, we conducted a series of four 1-hour interviews with a key informant in preparation for individual in-depth interviews with 12 parents. The ethnographic interviews with the community leader provided insight into environmental context, cultural categories, and stakeholder priorities, which helped shape the research question, in-depth interview guide, sampling strategy, and interpretive analytic process. We found that ethnographic interviews can provide critical insights for preparing in-depth interview guides and can enhance the information gained while facilitating meaningful stakeholder engagement.

Background: Paediatric professionals promote shared reading to facilitate school readiness, yet relatively few studies examine how parents from underserved communities consider this issue in their daily lives. We sought to understand shared reading within the broader context of parenting among Latino parents.Methods: We conducted in-depth interviews, purposively sampling Spanishspeaking, Latina mothers of children aged ≤3 years from an urban Federally Qualified Health Center. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analysed iteratively. We allowed themes to emerge from data rather than impose an a priori framework. We sought disconfirming evidence within interviews and collected additional data to ensure no new themes were identified (saturation).Results: We achieved saturation after 12 interviews. The median child age was 1.4 years. We identified four major themes: (a) All participants reported engaging in literacy promoting activities such as conversations, storytelling, play, and singing even if they did not read to their children daily. (b) Parents' attitudes regarding early learning and development influenced the extent to which parents engaged in shared reading with their child. (c) Participants described feelings that they ought to read daily with their children but were not and cited a variety of barriers. (d) Parents who engaged in frequent shared reading described it as a joyful and relaxed experience; parents who did not engage in shared reading described reading as instructing children or engaging in drills (e.g., teaching letters).Conclusion: Urban, Latina mothers who did not read regularly with their children nonetheless recognized its importance suggesting that existing programmes have raised awareness even among underserved families. Refinement of messaging may be needed to move past raising awareness to facilitating shared reading for some parents.