As COVID-19 vaccines reach city residents at increasing rates, vaccine access often reflects existing socioeconomic and racial inequalities. Acknowledging these disparities, various downtown community partnerships mobilized to promote equitable vaccine distribution.
The Hispanic League, Winston Salem Transit Authority and many other community groups, including Union Baptist Church just north of downtown, have increased vaccine access within marginalized groups by encouraging vaccine education, facilitating distribution, and providing transportation to vaccine appointments.
These community organizations partnered with the main players of the vaccine rollout effort in Winston Salem: Forsyth County Public Health Department, Novant Health, Wake Forest Baptist Health, and local pharmacies. Together, these organizations engage in a joint effort to overcome vaccine hesitancy and inequities in vaccine access within marginalized communities.
“To protect each other, to protect our communities, to be able to get back to all the normal living we want to do, we all need to get vaccinated,” said Dr. John Walton Sanders, Chief of the Infectious Disease Sections at the Wake Forest School of Medicine. “Whether we’re Latinx, African American, or southern white evangelical, we all need to step up and protect those around us.”
As of March 17, only 16.2% of the Black population has been fully vaccinated despite making up 23.1% of Forsyth County’s population, according to data provided by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. Similarly, the department reports that 3.9% of Forsyth County’s 9.8% Hispanic and Latinx community have been fully vaccinated. In contrast, 75.7% of the white population have received both doses of the vaccine and make up 67% of the Forsyth population.
“Not only is there an actual difference in health equity in terms of vaccine availability, but there is a difference in health equity in terms of accepting available resources,” said Sanders.
Within Black populations, vaccine hesitancy is often a byproduct of historically justified distrust in health care systems, according to Sanders. Further, even though Hispanic and Latinx communities have been hard-hit by COVID-19, undocumented residents are less willing to seek vaccines out of fear of deportation due to their immigration status.
One of the community-based organizations working to dismantle these inequities is the Hispanic League, a non-profit group that hopes to bridge the Hispanic and Non-Hispanic communities in Winston Salem. This group works to improve quality of life for Hispanic and Latinx individuals through community inclusion efforts, education campaigns, and multicultural understanding.
“When COVID-19 hit, there was a lot of information that was available in English, but there was very little information available in Spanish,” Mari Jo Turner, the Executive Director of the Hispanic League, said. “We immediately put out a hotline number out there in Spanish and English so people could call us and get the information they needed.”
The Hispanic League also provided thousands of masks to every Hispanic business in an effort to mitigate COVID-19 transmission, especially among essential workers. Recently, this organization partnered with the Forsyth County Health Department, Novant Health, Wake Forest Baptist Health, and the Downtown Health Plaza to launch an outreach campaign to spread reliable information about COVID-19 vaccines within Winston Salem’s Hispanic and Latinx community.
A pillar of this outreach is weekly, Spanish-language Facebook Live events where health experts and guests answer questions about COVID-19 that are prevalent within the Hispanic and Latinx community in Winston Salem. Since its start 44 weeks ago, these education campaigns have reached over 38,000 viewers.
“It’s obviously meeting a great need,” Turner said. “We’ve been doing a lot to get information about vaccines out there. We’re trying to dispel myths and make sure people know how to make appointments.”
The congregation at Union Baptist Church also engaged in inequitable vaccine distribution efforts. In January, Union Baptist Church partnered with Novant Health to become one of Winston Salem’s many vaccine sites. The church promoted mass-vaccination events within its congregation and around the Winston Salem area through flyers, social media posts, and community outreach.
In addition to providing the vaccine, the Union Baptist Church has laid the groundwork for its acceptance within its congregation. Throughout the pandemic, the church often transformed their weekly Bible study into a space to share information on COVID-19 testing and vaccines. This activism embodies the church’s motto of “prophe-charismatic” coined by Pastor Sir Walter Mack, meaning spiritual work that intersects racism, sexism, homelessness, and politics.
Representatives from Novant Health have attended the church’s Thursday night Bible study in panel discussions on the vaccine. These representatives answered questions, responded to concerns and provided information about vaccine access, according to Cheryl Harry, the Program Ministry for Union Baptist Church.
“It was very empowering for individuals to talk to physicians and people in the medical field and have their questions answered directly,” Harry said.
The Winston Salem Transit Authority also played a role in this broad community outreach campaign. Earlier this year, Winston Salem Transit Authority received funding from the Forsyth County Department of Social Services to help ensure that lack of transportation would not create a barrier for lower-income individuals who wished to receive the vaccine.
“WSTA has a vaccine transportation line that callers can call in to and it directly links them to a staff person that will take their information… and get free transportation from their home to vaccine sites and back,” Donna Woodson, the General Manager of the Winston Salem Transit Authority, said.
Between Jan. 31 and March 5, the Winston-Salem Transit Authority provided vaccine-site transportation to 51 passengers in the form of free bus passes. The agency expects that demand for this service will increase as the Forsyth County Health Department makes the vaccine more available in the Winston-Salem area. When demand spikes, the Winston-Salem Transit Authority plans to dedicate a portion of their vehicles to this transportation campaign.
