In its final report, the Biden Administration’s COVID-19 Health Equality Task Force highlighted the encouraging improvements over the past year in addressing burden inequality. COVID-19 on racial and ethnic groups, as well as disparities in vaccine access and vaccination rates.
Overall, the gap in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths between blacks and Hispanics compared with whites has narrowed, with nearly 90% of COVID-19 deaths in the community Blacks, browns and Indigenous peoples decreased over the past year. Vaccination rates have also improved, with these underrepresented groups now being vaccinated at rates that reflect their rates in the US population. “Looking back to April, we saw a disparity of about 10 points in vaccination rates across racial and ethnic groups. We now consistently see in national groups and from the CDC that for eligible adults in this country, the racial and ethnic gaps have closed for vaccination,” said Dr. Smith, chair of the Health Equity Task Force.
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Created by the Executive Order that President Biden signed in the first few days of taking office, the task force’s mission is to ensure that the COVID-19 response, including the historic mass vaccination campaign , fair priority – in education and information about injections, as well as access to them.
That task is especially important because the virus hits communities of color and less resource-rich areas: rates of infection, hospitalization, and death among Black, Hispanic, and non-white populations. higher than whites. Because access to healthcare providers who are using vaccines is so unequal, those trends are expected to spill over into vaccination status if targeted efforts to accessibility equalization is not performed.
Through monthly meetings lasting three to four hours each, the 13 members of the task force brought together experts and reviewed data on a number of key topics — the availability of relevant data. racial and ethnic concerns, vaccine access, behavioral health, discrimination and xenophobia, Long COVID, testing, COVID-19 therapies, and future pandemic preparedness. In the end, the team narrowed the list of 300 recommendations to 55 in their final report, focusing on five key actions. These include investing in local community-based efforts, led by local leaders or organizations, such as faith-based groups; devoting more resources to collecting data on health-related concerns by race and ethnicity; and more and more representation of people of color in the health care system.
One of the main challenges the group faces when it comes to providing advice on tackling inequality is the lack of data on race and ethnicity in many national databases tracking COVID-19 cases and vaccination. “We were perplexed – it is no secret that in the course of our work we do not always have the data we need to know where to target resources,” Nunez-Smith said. “. Highlighting this shortfall has helped draw in more resources over the past year to collect and establish data collection systems in communities of color, particularly for vaccination campaigns. “The data infrastructure has certainly improved during the pandemic, but in the beginning we didn’t have what we needed,” she said.
Building on its recommendations, which the task force has made public throughout its operations over the past year, the Biden Administration is allocating $785 million from the American Rescue Plan to support efforts to community-based efforts to build trust in vaccines among people of color and in rural and low-income populations, and strengthen public health resources for people with disabilities. The grant will enhance the education and training of community health workers who focus on underserved communities, as well as school nurses and public health professionals during the Epidemic. Indian Health Service. It will also provide resources to help people with disabilities receive treatment and recover from COVID-19.
Nunez-Smith said the task force work has been an integral part of the Biden Administration’s COVID-19 response. For example, when the task force highlighted certain barriers to vaccination, such as missed work and lack of transportation to vaccination centers, the government advocated for people to be vaccinated. Paid leave and transportation to vaccination centers covered. The government also supports local communities and faith-based leaders to answer people’s questions about vaccines, based on the task force’s recommendation to provide vaccine education through reliable messengers.
Nunez-Smith emphasized that the task force’s work does not end with reporting; One of the group’s recommendations is to maintain a health equity task force at the White House level to maintain the momentum of prioritizing equity when looking at any pandemic response. This intent to prioritize equity in this pandemic response is largely due to the Executive Order that created the task force and that level of commitment to carry over to the next response. “Is there a special task force more important than the person who comes out and offers to take the neighbor to get vaccinated? No, we didn’t,” she said. “It has cooperated fully with a lot of partners. Stake is a journey and a journey, and this is not the end. There is still much work to be done and one of our recommendations is to work together permanently at the White House on the health equality agenda. ”
