COVID-19 vaccine distribution is an opportunity to improve health equity

The sprint to administer COVID-19 vaccines has underscored the divide between who has access to quality health care and who doesn’t. Nationally, low-income communities and ethnic minorities — the same groups who are already disproportionately vulnerable to this insidious virus — are being inoculated at much lower rates than their white peers.

Distribution of the vaccine presents an opportunity to take an important step toward addressing this problem in the United States.

While we strive to vaccinate as many people as we can as quickly as possible, forging partnerships between community leaders and those who are administering the vaccine will help not only to get shots into arms faster, but help us to be intentional about doing so equitably.

A vaccination site operated by St. Luke’s Health on the Texas Southern University campus illustrates how such partnerships help to distribute critical health care to underserved communities. The appointment-only site inoculates patients who meet the state’s guidelines for distribution, and its strategic location in the heart of the city’s historically black Third Ward neighborhood provides direct access for patients who need it the most. Texas Southern pharmacy students and faculty have joined Baylor St. Luke’s health care workers to administer and bring the vaccines directly to a community that needs them most.

Texas Southern, one of the nation’s largest historically black universities, is a beacon in Houston’s Third Ward, a predominantly Black community where more than half of the population reports an income below $25,000 annually. The university’s reputation for service and dedication to the neighborhoods bordering its campus brings an important layer of trust and legitimacy to this work. Its staff has been invaluable in providing operational support as the busy site vaccinates thousands of vulnerable and at-risk patients every week. Baylor St. Luke’s, which was designated a vaccine distribution hub by the state of Texas in mid-January, has focused its efforts on members of the community and underserved populations in the zip codes hardest hit by the pandemic. Our two institutions share the same mission to serve, and this joint initiative enables us to work together to expand our reach.

Since the Texas Southern site opened in early February, 18,594 doses of the vaccine have been administered to 11,973 people that qualify under state criteria. More than 52 percent of those recipients are Black and approximately 26 percent are over the age of 65.

While we are encouraged by the early success of this partnership, we know there are still steep challenges to equitable vaccine distribution, including limited vaccine supply and the fact that some communities, including those of color, have apprehension of the vaccine itself. Our hope is that our combined strength will help us tackle those challenges.

Broadly, racial and other demographic data that shows who is receiving the vaccines are still murky at best, including in Texas. Currently, the U.S. has racial and ethnic data for about half of the vaccine doses that have been administered so far. Only about 5 percent have gone to Black recipients and 11 percent to Latinos. Access to that data is critical to understanding barriers to health care access and efforts to be intentional about equity not only in the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine, but to health equity generally.

The February winter storms in Texas also disproportionately impacted those same communities who are most vulnerable to COVID-19, knocking out power, water and internet for thousands of people for days and delayed vaccine shipments, which slowed down vaccination efforts across the state as a result.

We know that partnerships such as the one between Baylor St. Luke’s and Texas Southern are only a single but important step toward achieving equity in vaccine distribution and health care overall. But every bridge built between communities to provide better access to critical medical treatment matters during the recovery from the pandemic and as we work to resolve the unacceptable disparities the virus has laid bare.

It will take months yet to vaccinate everyone and create critical herd immunity that will provide wider protection against COVID-19. And we’re still learning about the long-term effects the virus will have on the health of those who contract it, with the expectation that there will be lingering side effects that require further treatment.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the distribution of the vaccine shows just how critical these intentional, community-minded collaborations between health care providers and community partners are to ensure that everyone has equitable access to vital medical treatment.

T. Douglas Lawson is the CEO of St. Luke’s Health. Kenneth “Ken” Huewitt serves as Interim President of Texas Southern University.