Health leaders address vaccine hesitancy

SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) - As more COVID-19 vaccines become available, Latinos and Blacks aren’t getting those shots at the same rate as whites.

In Chatham County, local political, health and faith leaders are trying to change that. Healthy Savannah is part of the group that’s working hard to educate people about the vaccine and encourage them to take it.

The Coastal Health District says minority communities by far are the least vaccinated group of people in the state.

“Some of that is vaccine hesitancy, suspicion of big government,” said Dr. Lawton Davis, Director of the Coastal Health District.

That suspicion is linked to how African-Americans have been treated in the U.S. in the past. Mainly during the Tuskegee Experiment - designed to observe untreated syphilis in black populations.

During the 40 year study, Black men were not told and even when a cure was found, it wasn’t given to them.

To this day, it makes many in the community afraid to trust the healthcare system. Access to healthcare has also stopped many minorities from getting vaccinated.

“So we’re going to try to take it to those communities to the extent that we can.”

Vaccine access, outreach and education efforts are already underway in Chatham County.

Lawmakers, healthcare, and faith leaders are using mobile vans and churches to put shots in arms and encourage trust in the vaccine in the four quadrants of the county.

Organizations like Healthy Savannah are working with those leaders and other groups to address vaccine education and hesitancy.

“We’re going to be doing more focus groups and more need assessments to learn locally what is really important to our community because we don’t want to just go out and do something because we think it’s the best idea because as we all know that’s not the right thing to do, so I know that a lot of the folks in the community are depending on us and these resources to help do that coordination,” said Pau;a Kreissler, Executive Director of Healthy Savannah.

Healthy Savannah is expecting to receive a $500,000 Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health grant from the CDC in April to help with these efforts in Black and Latino communities.

The State of Georgia is working on education and outreach materials in English and Spanish in hopes of easing the fear in minority populations. In the Coastal Health District, they are working to vaccinate people on the hurricane registry list who are not able to leave their homes.

Copyright 2021 WTOC. All rights reserved.