The state’s effort to improve access to the COVID-19 vaccine and create confidence in the vaccine for one of Alabama’s most vulnerable groups – black residents – is lacking in a population that is nearly three times more likely to die and almost four times more likely advocates say they were hospitalized with COVID-19 than whites.
“We feel there are two things the state can do much better,” said Bernard Simelton, president of the NAACP.
“They need to use more information about the vaccine and use different media to inform the public about how to sign up, where to sign up,” such as black churches and radio stations.
“The information needs to be disseminated in a way that people can understand.”
No reference point
There are no publicly available data on how many black Alabamers have received the COVID-19 vaccine so far – or any other racial group.
Alabama has not yet released the data, as some vaccine providers are still learning how to enter the information into the state system, Dr. Karen Landers, assistant state health officer for Alabama, said. She said, however, the state is still collecting the data.
On when this information will be released, Landers said, “We do not have a timeline, but continue to have the most accurate information about race before we can see it on our dashboard.”
See also: How long will it take to vaccinate Alabama and how can we speed it up?
The neighboring Mississippi is one of only 20 states that have released the data, and the numbers show that blacks are vaccinated disproportionately in proportion to their share of the state’s population.
Only 18 percent of black Mississippians receive at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, though it makes up 37 percent of the state’s population, according to the latest statistics provided by the Mississippi Department of Health. Meanwhile, white Mississippians made up 69 percent of the COVID-19 vaccinations while representing 59 percent of the state population.
The release of the data in Alabama would be a reference point whether Blacks receive the vaccine fairly and to address areas to improve access.
A late start
The Alabama Department of Public Health is working to improve access to vaccines among vulnerable populations.
The agency made a request for proposals and offered $ 100,000 to $ 250,000 to groups to increase access to vaccines for black, Hispanic and Native American tribes. Decisions on who will receive the money will only be made after March 30 – the deadline for the RFPs must be submitted; ADPH could not be reached for comment on the expectation that the funds would be distributed.
Advocates believe the timeline is too late, as it has been known for months that blacks are 2.8 times more likely to die from COVID-19 and 3.7 times more likely to be hospitalized with the virus.
‘This is CDC funding – I wish it had come much earlier. The outline of the activity in the request for proposals is the kind of thing that could have been planned months ago, so it’s a shame that this strategic thinking was not in place earlier, ”said Jim Carnes, Alabama Arise policy director, who advocates for low-income Alabamians.
“We are in a position that we will take what we can get. They appear to be planning to fund activities that could be critical to address the potential differences in the vaccine, but the timing is like two months late. People in organizations will have to scramble to gain meaningful traction to try to avoid the differences. ”
Simelton said the NAACP has taken a proactive approach to disseminating information about the vaccine to the Black community.
The organization hosts weekly briefings from Wednesday to March 4 with experts from UAB Hospital and ADPH to address questions and concerns about the vaccine, but he said the state should do more about black outreach.
“There are still a lot of people who will not reach us, and they need to work with the community and community groups to help articulate the word,” he said. “It must be that they are reaching out to us. They have a responsibility to reach out to community-based groups to ask what we can do to make the word heard better. ”
The state is launching mass vaccination clinics for COVID-19 in Anniston, Auburn, Birmingham, Dothan, Huntsville, Mobile, Montgomery, Selma and Tuscaloosa.
‘A record of betrayal’
Although COVID-19 is more likely to be lethal to Blacks, less than half of African Americans say they will get the vaccine as soon as it is available to them, and 30 percent say they will not be vaccinated at all, according to a survey by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.
Of those who do not receive the vaccine, or are unsure whether they want to be vaccinated, 66 percent said they were concerned about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine, and 45 percent were concerned that the vaccine would harm them.
In Alabama, the seeds of mistrust were sown in the Tuskegee Experiment, the once secretive federal government program where poor black participants from Macon County with untreated syphilis were studied under the suspicion that they had received free medical treatment for their participation.
“We have a record here of the betrayal of African American communities by the government, and we need to keep that in mind if we are to be eligible for a massage health program,” Carnes said. “We need to break through some grounded skepticism.”
Simelton added: “It’s definitely a huge concern, and I’d have people say, ‘I’m not going to be [the government’s] guinea pig … but that’s why it’s important to give the correct information to the communities. ”