Equitable COVID-19 Vaccination for Hispanics in the United States: A Success Story from California Border Communities

Maria Elena Martinez, Jesse N. Nodora, Corinne McDaniels-Davidson, Noe C. Crespo and Amir Adolphe Edward
Additional contact information
Maria Elena Martinez: Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA
Jesse N. Nodora: Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA
Corinne McDaniels-Davidson: Institute for Public Health, School of Public Health, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92020, USA
Noe C. Crespo: School of Public Health, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92182, USA
Amir Adolphe Edward: El Centro Regional Medical Center, El Centro, CA 92243, USA

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 1, 1-5

Abstract: The ongoing 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic continues to impact the health of individuals worldwide, including causing pauses in lifesaving cancer screening and prevention measures. From time to time, elective medical procedures, such as those used for cancer screening and early detection, were deferred due to concerns regarding the spread of the infection. The short- and long-term consequences of these temporary measures are concerning, particularly for medically underserved populations, who already experience inequities and disparities related to timely cancer care. Clearly, the way out of this pandemic is by increasing COVID-19 vaccination rates and doing so in an equitable manner so that communities most affected receive preferential access and administration. In this article, we provide a perspective on vaccine equity by featuring the experience of the California Hispanic community, who has been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. We first compared vaccination rates in two United States–Mexico border counties in California (San Diego County and Imperial County) to counties elsewhere in California with a similar Hispanic population size. We show that the border counties have substantially lower unvaccinated proportions of Hispanics compared to other counties. We next looked at county vaccination rates according to the California Healthy Places Index, a health equity metric and found that San Diego and Imperial counties achieved more equitable access and distribution than the rest of the state. Finally, we detail strategies implemented to achieve high and equitable vaccination in this border region, including Imperial County, an agricultural region that was California’s epicenter of the COVID-19 crisis at the height of the pandemic. These United States–Mexico border county data show that equitable vaccine access and delivery is possible. Multiple strategies can be used to guide the delivery and access to other public health and cancer preventive services.

Keywords: 2019 novel coronavirus disease; vaccine equity; cancer prevention; health disparities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/1/535/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/1/535/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:1:p:535-:d:717270

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().