There is a difficulty that Latinx and Black people have when trusting medical or institutional directives.
Nowadays, as the vaccine has been rolled out, comments like the following have occurred: “I always said I wasn’t going to get the vaccine because Trump was pushing the doctors and scientist to finish it before the election. I didn’t think that was good.”
But seeing that Dr. Fauci, Biden, Obama and Bush are going to take the vaccine, some believe that it is good now and you can trust it.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine for emergency use on Dec. 11 and a week later approved the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. The first doses of the Pfizer vaccine were administered – a light at the end of a long dark tunnel for many citizens.
For others, fears around vaccine risks are outweighing their hope to return to normalcy.
The pandemic has been “mentally alienating” for many.
A 67-year-old Mexican-American mother of six, Paramo is unable to work due to a medical condition. “I’m worried about my kids and I’m stuck at home. I want to leave, I want to cry, I’m frustrated. I have a lot of feelings about it.”
Yet Paramo also has concerns about the coronavirus vaccine. “I wouldn’t get it,” she says. “I don’t know what it has inside it.”
A survey from the Public Policy Institute of California shows that just half of the Latinx population said they would “definitely or probably take vaccine.”
Nationally, those percentages are even lower. Black and Latinx communities are especially concerned about vaccine safety and effectiveness, according to a survey from the COVID Collaborative.
“You’ve got folks that are actually really excited that the vaccine is finally here and you have some that want nothing to do with it. No one wants to feel like a guinea pig or like they’re being experimented on.”
Some folks who grew up in the era of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study remember the gross injustices and experiments of that time.
In 1932, 600 Black men were enrolled in a study on the progression of syphilis under the guise of receiving free medical care for their condition. Even as some men began to die, go blind or develop other severe health conditions due to their untreated syphilis, researchers continued the experiment for 40 more years. The exploitation of these patients has become known as one of the most infamous displays of medical racism in history.
During the same period, teaching hospitals across the country conducted involuntary hysterectomies and sterilization on women of color, cruelly known as the “Mississippi appendectomy.” The forced sterilizations weren’t limited to the South – they happened in Los Angeles as well.
Then there was Henrietta Lacks, a Black mother of five who died in 1951 from an aggressive cervical cancer at the age of 31. Lacks’ cancer cells were taken without her knowledge or consent and have been involved in numerous medical advancements in cancer, immunology and infectious disease ever since. Companies that profited from her cells failed to inform or compensate her family for decades.
Recent allegations of unwanted hysterectomies reported by women detained in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities are a reminder that historical mistreatment continues even today.
In California, 38% of the population is Latinx. As of Dec. 11, they account for nearly 60% of COVID-19 cases and 47.7% of related deaths.
While Black residents are just 6% of the state’s population, they make up 7.2% of all COVID-19-related deaths.
Latinx and Black Californians are being hospitalized and dying at 2-4 times the rate of white residents.
The devastating data reflect how people of color are more likely to be in at-risk environments.%%%%% Racial and ethnic minority groups are disproportionately over-represented in low-wage, essential work.
A lack of paid sick leave, dependency on regular day-to-day income, lack of appropriate protection at work, and a greater tendency to live in multi-generational homes add to the risk of infection.
These groups can’t choose to miss work because they depend on that regular income. They often don’t have the ability to take time off and if they are part-time workers, then they likely hold multiple jobs.
This is a commentary on where the U.S. health care system is today when it comes to investments in public health.
Along with misinformation shared on social media and from the White House and the impact of the anti-vaccine movement, medical mistrust continues to heighten fear.
That mistrust may lead to a lower vaccine uptake rate in communities that need it most.
Early on, drugmakers had difficulty attracting Black, Indigenous, people of color to participate in COVID-19 vaccine trials – necessary for understanding whether the vaccine would differently impact various groups.
In September, Pfizer expanded its trial from 30,000 to 44,000 participants in order to increase enrollment from new populations. At the same time, Moderna slowed its enrollment to ensure representation from communities of color.
Chatter about misinformation such as doctors injecting the virus into patients have people apprehensive about enrolling at first.
Honest conversations with patients are part of the “trench work” physicians, nurses and health care personnel are doing to mitigate concerns, build trust and correct some of the misinformation being circulated.
This global pandemic complicates and undermines efforts. Patients didn’t go to the hospital when they should have because of mistrust. Because of fear, patients that DID go to the hospital when they should have and were turned away one, two, three times only to die at home.”
Also, the lack of diversity in medicine, biomedical research and public health contributes to mistrust, further increasing harm.
It’s important for patients to see health care workers and influencers who are members of communities of color get the vaccine in order to slow excess rates of hospitalization and death.
A vaccine may end the pandemic, but it won’t end medical mistrust or fix historic and contemporary systemic societal gaps.
It’s no coincidence we’re having conversations about policing, surveillance, housing and vaccine hesitancy at the same time.
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Source: https://connect.uclahealth.org/2020/12/15/covid-19-vaccine-hesitancy-in-communities-of-color/
