CITRIS Health Releases Insights from Pilot Vaccine Programs to Help Vaccinate Harder to Reach Populations

BERKELEY, Calif., June 22, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, inequities have been laid bare across racial groups, geography, and age. The devastating effects of the pandemic have disproportionately landed on Black and Hispanic populations. Vaccination access has been determined by location. And older people have struggled with technology barriers in their efforts to get vaccinated. CITRIS Health, an organization dedicated to advancing the well-being of older adults and family caregivers with enabling technology, tasked partners with addressing these inequities and is now releasing resources to allow other organizations to build on successes and implement programs that can help create a more equitable vaccination system.

CITRIS Health partners launched successful vaccine outreach and administration campaigns to ensure that overlooked populations – older adults who live alone, homebound adults, immigrants, racial and ethnic minorities, and agricultural workers – were reached with vaccine efforts. The trial efforts discovered that strategic partnerships with community organizations, creatively addressing distribution issues, understanding technology needs, mobile options, overcoming language barriers, and focusing on education were all crucial to an effective vaccination effort.

"Health inequities exposed by COVID-19 were only exacerbated when vaccines were made available, and access remained a barrier," said CITRIS Health Director David Lindeman. "Our efforts to reach underserved communities taught us so much about what works and what doesn't, and we look forward to being able to share these insights with other community leaders to reach more and more people with important health information and resources."

CITRIS Health has made available public resources from these efforts that can help others to replicate efforts to vaccinate overlooked populations and overcome access and hesitancy barriers.

About CITRIS Health
The CITRIS Health Initiative is built upon a robust history of addressing critical health and health care challenges facing society. The initiative focuses on developing transformative, scalable, and sustainable information technology solutions to improve health and wellness. These technology-enabled solutions can improve the quality of care and health outcomes, while reducing health care costs.

SOURCE CITRIS