Public health workers innovate around social distancing guidelines

The Global Response Management is a humanitarian nonprofit led by U.S. military veterans and staffed by U.S. volunteers and "paid asylum seekers who were medical professionals in their homelands" that offers medical help to migrants at two clinics in Matamoros, Mexico – including, most recently, COVID-19 antibody tests. Although the organization's future is uncertain, it is not alone in its efforts, and it and other humanitarian aid organizations plan to continue collecting health data.

Because of coordinated partnerships between local governments, state health departments, and nonprofit groups, more and more farmworkers are receiving COVID-19 vaccinations. Through the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services Farmworker Health program and its partners, nearly 14,000 doses were administered to the farmworker community over two months. Advocates also have to dispel rumors and myths about the vaccines, but they are working to combat that misinformation and make it easier for them to get vaccinated.

The government's response to the coronavirus pandemic eliminated many bureaucratic barriers and increased funding for health clinics across Hawaii, allowing the entities to offer services such as mobile clinics and telehealth. Although it is yet to be seen if these changes will last, the changes have proved successful enough that several legislative measures are now under consideration.

In Colombia – where having an abortion can be stigmatizing, in some cases illegal, and now even more difficult due to the coronavirus pandemic – a clinic has set up a national hotline to help women who are up to 10 weeks pregnant aaccess to safe abortions at home. So far, the clinic has connected with 700 women.

Promotoras de salud is a term that describe lay Latina community members who have been trained to provide health education to community members, and it's a concept that has helped eliminate barriers and improve health outcomes in Montana. Now, as the coronavirus pandemic spreads throughout the state, these part-time community health workers are helping their communities navigate the barriers to navigating the complex health care system.

New Hampshire's community mental health centers are working together to deliver both in-person and telehealth services to community members during the coronavirus pandemic. All 10 of the state's centers are "sharing ideas and helping each other with what is working and identifying what isn’t working," while also working to help reduce barriers to health care access for those experiencing homelessness.

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."

When the coronavirus pandemic caused lockdowns in Africa, many community members became hesitant to continue taking part in malaria prevention efforts for fear of contracting COVID-19, so health care workers began visiting people at their own homes to deliver both malaria and coronavirus information. Since the effort started, more people have begun to go back to the hospitals for treatment.

The humanitarian organization known as Refugee Support in Nicosia, Cyrpus has been using WhatsApp to provide useful information to refugee populations during the coronavirus pandemic in addition to delivering food to 200 people per week. Although the organization is limited in who they can offer help to due to financial feasibility, the group has still been able to ease the "tension, conflict, and frustration between migrants during the process of being quarantined."

Health officials and Cleveland homeless shelters are working together to prevent a coronavirus outbreak among those who are experiencing homelessness. Mass testing, separate areas for the already tested and those yet to be, and a focus on more equitably disseminating information have been key to helping the caseload stay low, although the shelters are facing limitations such as a slow turnaround time for test results.