CDC EXCITE Vaccination Education

There is a tragic irony about health in the United States. The nation leads the world in the development of cutting-edge technology, such as vaccines for reducing rates of infection and slowing the spread of deadly diseases. Yet simultaneously, it struggles to get diverse segments of its population to access, use, and benefit from that technology. Thus, health outcomes in one of the wealthiest nations in the world vary dramatically by race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and geography, limiting the ability of some groups to live long, healthy, and prosperous lives. These patterns of health disparities resurfaced once again during the COVID-19 pandemic. Black, brown, and Indigenous people, as well as low-income people employed in the “essential workforce,” including farm workers, were infected at higher rates, died at higher rates, and in the most recent wave of the pandemic, have been the least likely to obtain vaccines to protect them. Indeed, the very places with the highest concentration of vulnerable populations as illustrated by the CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) have experienced the worst outcomes throughout the various stages of the pandemic, including lower vaccination rates.
These patterns are unsustainable if we are to end the current pandemic, and more generally prepare the State of New York for a healthy and equitable future. For these reasons, our goal is to engage socially vulnerable, marginalized communities in vaccine intervention partnerships that leverage their strengths to enhance vaccine uptake, both during the current COVID-19 pandemic, and afterward in other vaccination campaigns (e.g., Influenza vaccination clinics). The capacity to intervene successfully is a central element in our rational for identifying these priority populations. The partners engaged in this project have a demonstrated track record for engaging marginalized, socially vulnerable groups both during the COVID-19 pandemic and prior to it.
During the past year, they have distributed masks, PPE, sanitizer and food to vulnerable rural communities including farmworkers. And beginning in February 2021, they have partnered to establish community-based and hyperlocal vaccination sites in multiple diverse and socially vulnerable neighborhoods in New York City, enabling 7,836 people to access COVID-19 shots as of early May 2021 (4,050 people are now fully vaccinated and 11,886 shots have been administered by the partnership). Our goal is to build on these efforts to continue serving vulnerable communities. Cornell Cooperative Extension’s statewide system can bring together local institutions and stakeholders including healthcare providers, Cornell University and Weill Cornell Medicine faculty, and high-impact initiatives such as the Cornell Farmworker Program to use our collective strengths and talents to improve the lives of the communities we serve, wherever they may live throughout our state. Thus, our current project team will build on prior programming and Activity One assessments to engage farmworkers isolated by economic, housing, linguistic and immigration conditions (Cayuga County and other locations statewide), isolated rural residents lacking access to social centers (Delaware County), day laborers who are linguistically marginalized and lack transportation (Suffolk County), and communities of faith isolated by language and immigration status (NYC).