Using Community Engagement and Geographic Information Systems to Address COVID-19 Vaccination Disparities

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated existing health disparities and had a disproportionate impact on racial and ethnic minority groups in the United States. Limited COVID-19 data for Asian Americans have led to less attention for this population; nevertheless, available statistics have revealed lesser known impacts of COVID-19 on this population. Even with significant increases in vaccine supply and recent increases in COVID-19 vaccination rates, racial and ethnic disparities in vaccine uptake still persist. These disparities are amplified for individuals with limited English proficiency (LEP). The purpose of this paper is to apply community-engaged and geographic information system (GIS) strategies to increase equitable access to COVID-19 vaccination uptake by decreasing the structural barriers to COVID-19 vaccine uptake, with a particular focus on Asian Americans with LEP. Building upon existing community-academic partnerships between the academic unit and community-based organizations, the project team established community-led mobile and pop-up COVID-19 vaccination clinics to reach underserved individuals in their communities, worked with commercial pharmacies and reserved appointments for community-based organizations, used GIS to establish COVID-19 vaccination sites close to communities with the greatest need, and deployed trusted messengers to deliver linguistically and culturally relevant COVID-19 vaccine messages which built vaccine confidence among the community members. The implementation of mobile clinics expanded COVID-19 vaccine access and community-driven, multi-sector partnerships can increase the capacity to enhance efforts and facilitate access to COVID-19 vaccination for hard-to-reach populations.

Design and Implementation of a Federal Program to Engage Community Partners to Reduce Disparities in Adult COVID-19 Immunization Uptake, United States, 2021-2022

“…8 Research by CHDIS also revealed that experiences of racism were associated with greater vaccine safety concerns. 10 The CHDIS Geographic Information Systems team also developed and launched a web-based map 11 that includes the locations, number of vaccines administered, type(s) of vaccines, community partners, and dates of CHDIS mobile clinic events. Recognizing that community health workers are essential frontline public health workers who are trusted members of and/or have a deep understanding of the communities they serve, CHDIS identified, recruited, and trained 164 influential messengers as trusted voices.…”

Geospatial Health (GeoHealth): Current Trends, Methods, and Applications

“…With the help of a seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model, the study demonstrated that dengue cases sharply decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic, and spatial clusters were lower when compared to the pre-pandemic environments in Thailand [ 2 ]. Furthermore, an insightful COVID-19 case report illustrates the use of community engagement data and geographic information systems to enhance vaccination efforts in ethnic minority groups in the United States [ 3 ]. Zhou et al critically analyzed the geospatial distribution of health resources in China, highlighting a mismatch in resource allocation.…”