On a bustling Monday morning outside the Winston Salem Urban League\u2019s office on N. Trade Street, volunteers sporting yellow vests greeted Winston Salem residents as they arrived for COVID-19 vaccines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At this community vaccination event on March 29, the Urban League helped vaccinate over 330 city residents with the Pfizer vaccine, according to the Forsyth Department of Public Health. Many of those vaccinated made appointments before arriving, whereas others were solicited as they walked by the site that morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI wanted to be safe and I wanted to show support for people around me that the vaccine is safe,\u201d said Joseph Laws, a middle-aged man who works in the downtown area who received his first dose of the Pfizer vaccine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Urban League \u2013 an organization that empowers communities of color \u2013 hosted this event with the underlying goal to expand vaccine access within African American populations. To accomplish this, the Urban League promoted the event within its existing networks that reach a large African American audience, according to the organization\u2019s Chief Operating Officer, Kenneth Pettigrew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur whole mission is around advocating on behalf of African Americans and other marginalized groups through education, charity, civic engagement and so many different things,\u201d Pettigrew said. \u201cOur participation in the vaccine event was just that; it\u2019s about making sure that the proper outreach and marketing happens so folks can get access to the vaccine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Urban League\u2019s effort to distribute the vaccine within traditionally marginalized groups falls within Forsyth County Department of Public Health\u2019s campaign to broaden equitable vaccine access. This department has engaged in many vaccine equity initiatives, including hosting vaccine events with community partners like the Union Baptist Church, promoting vaccine education on social media, and offering evening and weekend vaccine appointments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This outreach campaign is uplifted, in part, by an additional 3,510 doses of the Pfizer vaccine that the Winston Salem area will receive weekly until mid-May. The Forsyth County Department of Public Health, Novant Health, and Wake Forest Baptist Health all share these doses and dedicate them to different initiatives. The Forsyth County Department of Public Health is using their third of this allotment to supplement ongoing community outreach efforts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
These efforts seek to alleviate disproportionate vaccination rates across races. As of April 12, 70.8% of those fully vaccinated have been white, slightly higher than their 67.7% share of Forsyth County\u2019s population, according to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. In contrast, this data reveals that only 19.4% of those fully vaccinated have been African American, despite making up 28.5% of Forsyth\u2019s County\u2019s overall population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vaccine hesitancy within communities, however, may thwart attempts at equitable access. This hesitancy is often a byproduct of historically justified mistrust in the American healthcare system within a segment of African Americans, according to Dr. John Sanders, Chief of the Section on Infectious Diseases at the Wake Forest School of Medicine. Motivating vaccine acceptance within community organizations\u2019 social bases will be essential to overcome inequities in vaccine distribution. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
To expand vaccination rates, the Urban League and other community organizations are working to dispel misinformation around the vaccine through online education campaigns and inform communities of color about vaccine availability. The Urban League plans to continue this effort in partnership with other community organizations in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe already have so many health disparities in our community and in our country,\u201d said Annamae Giles, a volunteer at the Urban League\u2019s community vaccination event. \u201cWe really need to work hard to make sure everyone has equitable access to the vaccines so that we can all get back to life, not just those of privilege.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On a bustling Monday morning outside the Winston Salem Urban League\u2019s office on N. Trade…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":1360,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-semester-spring21","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zerwicp.sites.wfu.edu\/CommunityJournalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zerwicp.sites.wfu.edu\/CommunityJournalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zerwicp.sites.wfu.edu\/CommunityJournalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zerwicp.sites.wfu.edu\/CommunityJournalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zerwicp.sites.wfu.edu\/CommunityJournalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1358"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zerwicp.sites.wfu.edu\/CommunityJournalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1359,"href":"https:\/\/zerwicp.sites.wfu.edu\/CommunityJournalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1358\/revisions\/1359"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zerwicp.sites.wfu.edu\/CommunityJournalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zerwicp.sites.wfu.edu\/CommunityJournalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zerwicp.sites.wfu.edu\/CommunityJournalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zerwicp.sites.wfu.edu\/CommunityJournalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}