Community Groups, Philanthropists Team Up For Vaccine Equity Fund

SEATTLE — State and local lawmakers are teaming up with community groups and philanthropists to create a new Vaccine Equity Fund, which they hope will ensure everyone has fair access to the COVID-19 vaccine going forward.

The Washington State Department of Health has known for months that the COVID-19 pandemic was disproportionately impacting Hispanic, Black and other minority communities. But only recently did they confirm that not only are the state's BIPOC communities more likely to catch the disease, they also have fewer opportunities to receive the vaccine.

According to the DOH's data:

• Hispanic residents make up 13.2% of the state's total population, but only 4.7% of the people who have received one vaccine dose.
• Similarly, Black residents comprise 3.9% of Washington's population but represent just 2.2% of people who have received a single dose of the vaccine.
• Multiracial communities have also had less equitable access to the vaccine.

Now, a new effort is attempting to fix those equity issues. The Vaccine Equity Fund will be led by All In Wa, but the movement has drawn support from other groups like the Seattle Foundation, Family Health Centers, Na’ah Illahee Fund, and Latino Community Fund. Figureheads from those community groups joined state leaders like Gov. Jay Inslee and King County Executive Dow Constantine for a conference Monday announcing the fund.

Organizers say the program will tackle equity issues through several angles, including:

• Removing barriers to access. This can mean several things, from giving technical assistance to help residents struggling with online registration, to physically transporting residents to vaccine locations when they can't take themselves. Organizers say transportation has been one of the largest access barriers, particularly for the elderly.
• Hosting pop-up and mobile vaccination clinics of their own. All in WA leaders say one of the best ways to get the vaccine to BIPOC, immigrant, and refugee communities is to bring vaccination to them.
• Spreading the word. This means ensuring that information is available in multiple languages so non-English speakers know how and where to get the vaccine. It also means addressing vaccine hesitancy in BIPOC communities.

Vaccine hesitancy is also an issue the state department of health is looking to address.

"We know from our community engagement efforts that BIPOC communities and other historically marginalized groups have a lot of hesitancy and have a lot of distrust for very valid reasons," said Paj Nandi the Department of Health's Director of Communications and Equity.

The Vaccine Equity Initiative has set a fundraising goal of $15 million, which will be matched by government sources for a total $30 million to address equity issues in Washington. You can learn more about the fund and how that spending will be used by visiting All In WA's website.