Vaccine Equity

In Massachusetts, the most effective vaccination efforts for LatinX and Black communities were led and organized by grassroots organizations. Groups like La Colaborativa worked to create a vaccination site with East Boston Neighborhood Health Center to provide vaccines for the Chelsea community. Yet, other entities claimed credit for the high vaccination rate while grassroots organizations worked for these communities. In Fall 2022, students compared the vaccination rates of two cities, one that doesn’t have a strong grassroots organization and one that does: Revere and Chelsea. Large hospitals have clinics in both cities that provide non-reimbursed services to maintain their not-for-profit tax status (it is their obligation under tax law). The goal was to compare the vaccination rates in these cities - if the hospital clinics were providing the critical services, then the vaccine rate in Revere should be similar to that in Chelsea. In Fall 2023, students explored New Bedford and Wellesley. In fall 2024, students generated an interactive map that enabled comparison of cumulative vaccination rates by certain demographics (age and race/ethnicity groups) in different cities. This semester, Dr. Koehler would like us to continue the research done in previous semesters and expand our analysis to include additional cities similar to Chelsea but outside the scope of La Collaborativa. The confirmed cities are Lawrence, Holyoke, Springfield, and Lynn, with a broadened scope to include other comparable cities as well as some dissimilar ones with varying income levels and demographic profiles.. We will analyze COVID-19 death rates by year (2020, 2021, 2022) across these cities and compare them to Chelsea and wealthier towns. The project will also focus on fine-tuning visualizations to incorporate meaningful comparators, such as statewide averages for vaccination rates and other relevant metrics, to provide a more comprehensive context for the findings. The ultimate goal is to better understand the role of community-based organizations in improving public health outcomes and to advocate for their increased attention and funding.