Charlotte hospitals and churches boost COVID vaccine outreach to minority communities
Pattye McGowan grew up attending Friendship Missionary Baptist Church off Beatties Ford Road with her 87-year-old mother, Bettye.
Bettye, who was diagnosed with dementia five years ago, got her first COVID-19 shot at their Charlotte church last Saturday. Getting that shot at a familiar location made all the difference, her daughter said.
That shot also was part of a broader effort from faith communities and local hospital systems to increase vaccine participation in Black, Hispanic and other marginalized communities that have been disproportionately hit by the coronavirus pandemic.
“I love my church. I love the way they step up and be a part of the community,” McGowan told the Observer. Nearly 200 people got their vaccine at Friendship Missionary that day, a partnership with Novant Health.
Novant has identified a number of sites for future vaccine clinics — other churches, some Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools and community health clinics.
Charlotte’s largest hospital system, Atrium Health, also is partnering with churches and organizations, especially in Black and Hispanic communities, to expand vaccine access.
Atrium and Novant provide the vast majority of COVID-19 shots in the Charlotte area.
“We know that under-served communities, communities of color have been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus,” Atrium’s Chief Community and Social Impact Officer Kinneil Coltman told reporters recently. “And so we want to make sure that there’s no barriers to access for vaccines.”
Atrium kicked off its new Community Immunity For All program with a vaccine clinic at First Baptist Church West last week, vaccinating nearly 300 people, Coltman said.
And Mecklenburg County health officials said Friday they are working on a vaccine clinic for the refugee community in the coming week.
Vaccine disparity
Across North Carolina, disparity around vaccine distribution is stark.
Some 11% of people getting their first dose of the COVID-19 shots are Black, according to state Department of Health and Human Services data. Meanwhile, 82% of those getting their first dose are white. Only 2% of people getting their first dose identified as Hispanic, according to NC DHHS.
Such rates don’t reflect the state’s population demographics. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 70.6% of North Carolinians are white, 22.2% are Black and 9.8% are Hispanic or Latino.
The state doesn’t release demographic data for individual counties. But North Carolina is now putting more pressure on counties to distribute vaccines equitably.
On Tuesday, NC DHHS Secretary Mandy Cohen said the state is asking providers to ensure the percentage of vaccines given to historically marginalized groups meets or exceeds the population estimates of those communities in the region.
North Carolina has already distributed 699,885 first doses of the coronavirus vaccines as of Thursday, according to the state.
And on Friday, Gov. Roy Cooper visited a Pittsboro health center. He said the state will work harder to ensure vaccines are getting into the arms of people in minority communities, adding, “We need to really concentrate on the equity piece,” AP reported.
Local clinics
Both Novant and Atrium have opened mass COVID-19 vaccination sites recently.
Atrium expects to vaccinate roughly 19,000 people at the Panthers’ Bank of America Stadium Friday through Sunday. Novant has opened a mass vaccination site in Winston-Salem and has detailed plans to open two sites in Charlotte, but needs more vaccines from the state to do so.
Novant received around 5,000 COVID-19 vaccines this week, compared to Atrium’s 35,000.
Still, mass vaccination sites are not enough, said Novant senior vice president of consumer engagement Dr. Jerome Williams Jr.
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Transportation to centralized mass vaccination events can prove a barrier for certain marginalized communities, he said.
“The ability to go from point A to point B sometimes is very challenging,” Williams said. “So we said, okay, well, we need to bring those vaccination sites deep into those communities.... You do that through partnerships.”
Vaccine waiting lists
Friendship Missionary Baptist has worked with Novant many times, the church’s faith community nurse, Danita Terrell said. In fact, Terrell is employed through both Novant and Friendship Missionary.
Health experts have worried that longstanding disparities and inequities in health care could make people of color hesitant to get the newly authorized vaccines. But Terrell said the response to vaccine availability at Friendship Missionary Baptist has been incredible.
Friendship Missionary’s congregation is predominantly Black, Terrell added.
“We are just overwhelmed and so excited that we have gotten this kind of response” to the vaccines, she said. “I have a waiting list that is just unbelievable.”
Around 75 people signed up for the first clinic within hours of the church announcing it last week, Terrell said. The church is hosting a second Novant vaccine clinic on Saturday, Jan. 30. Appointments are already full.
‘That is huge’
The C.W. Williams Community Health Center on Wilkinson Boulevard, which hosted a vaccine clinic with Mecklenburg County Public Health Jan. 22, also reported lots of enthusiasm.
“In all honesty, I don’t have the staff enough to answer the thousands of calls and (online) requests for vaccines that we’re getting,” CEO Debra Weeks said. “That is huge.”
The county health department provided vaccines for the event, and has another scheduled for second doses in February. The health center doesn’t yet have access to vaccines from the state but hopes to get access within weeks.
Relief over vaccines
As for Pattye McGowan, she’s 62, and just missed the 65-and-up cut off for the current wave of vaccines. She wished she could have gotten a shot like her mother at the church. Her two brothers had qualified and gotten their shots there too.
She lives with her mother as an in-house caretaker. Watching her mom get that first COVID-19 shot was a relief.
“Sometimes the grandchildren don’t really understand that you can’t get close to grandma,” she said. “So for her to get the vaccine at this early stage, it was very important.”
This story was originally published January 29, 2021 at 10:53 AM.
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