Minnesota COVID-19 outreach focuses on vulnerable communities of color

One rural hospital in Indiana vaccinated hundreds of immigrants from Central America by working with trusted community leaders and setting up a Hispanic Health Task Force. Health officials held vaccine clinics alongside trusted community members at locations that were familiar to residents, like a local Catholic church that offers Spanish-language services. The hospital and task force initially established community connections to distribute information about COVID-19, so they were able to utilize the connections to increase vaccination rates once the vaccine rolled out.

Community health workers are a key part of Connecticut's public health response to COVID-19, particularly in marginalized communities. CHWs connect people to health care and other services, like rental assistance, help with contact tracing, and effectively increased vaccinations by taking the time to answer questions and dispel misinformation. Living in the communities they serve is a critical part of the model’s success and helps clients trust them more readily. The state now offers a CHW certification program, but the largely grant-funded model would be more sustainable with steady funding.

Promotoras de salud, also known as community health workers, are helping to connect Latino immigrants with reliable and factual information about COVID-19. Using a peer-to-peer outreach model, a team of seven promotoras de salud from Centro San Bonifacio have "interacted with more than 4,000 Spanish speakers in Chicago."

In the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, local community members are leading the effort to reach out to those experiencing homelessness during the coronavirus pandemic. This effort has been successful in coordinating and distributing testing that is accessible to the population. As the director of the UCSF Center for Vulnerable Populations explains, “any public health response that does not center the voices of people who have lived the experience of homelessness is going to come up with the wrong solution.”

A group of health care workers and social workers formed to help connect hard-to-reach communities in Hawaii to COVID-19 testing and information about the pandemic. So far, they have been able to test more than 200 people who were showing symptoms or who had been at high risk of exposure. The director of the Hawaii Public Housing Authority has also reported that compliance with mask-wearing and other safety measures has increased since the effort began.

Accredited social health activists (ASHA) across India fight COVID-19 related misinformation on WhatsApp. ASHAs provide basic health care to people in their villages, which puts them on the frontline of treating COVID-19 patients and educating people to dispel the many myths about the virus and its treatments. ASHAs' local interactions often identify prevailing myths, which they quickly dispel in their face-to-face exchanges and by posting in the many local WhatsApp groups that have been created. The local groups have been an effective mode of educating people and helped ASHAs gain villagers’ trust.

As Covid-19 spread throughout regions of South Africa, public health clinics began reporting seeing fewer patients for HIV viral load testing due to shelter-in-place orders. In trying to mitigate the longterm implications of people missing their appointments, a few HIV specialists have joined the frontlines in local communities to act as both coronavirus testers and information conduits for HIV programs.

The Minnesota Department of Health is working with local advocacy groups to provide free Covid-19 testing at pop-up testing sites in communities where immigrants or undocumented residents live. The state-sponsored testing sites do not ask patients for any information regarding their citizen status and also do not require insurance to access the test.

In Nashua, New Hampshire, public health officials have set up a Covid-19 testing site in the parking lot of a church to better serve minority communities. The testing site caters to both drive-up and walk-up appointments, and those who setup the site, are also taking part in a community outreach program that aims to better disperse information to local residents.

The Greater Lowell Health Alliance offered COVID-19 vaccines using a “block party” model where community members enjoy free food, music, activities, and even childcare, while also having access to information about vaccines in multiple languages as well as the ability to actually get vaccinated. This model reduced barriers for immigrants, refugees, and other people who don’t speak English fluently, as well as caregivers who can’t attend vaccine appointments due to their caregiving responsibilities. The relaxed environment, where loved ones can support each other, increased comfort with getting the vaccine.