One U.S. State's Laser Focus on Data Helps Shrink Racial Vaccine Gap

[marmar]

North Carolina is among the best-performing U.S. states when it comes to distributing vaccines evenly among Black and White residents. That’s partly because the state is by far the best at collecting demographic data.

About 11% of North Carolina’s Black population has received at least one shot, compared with 17% of the state’s White residents, the Bloomberg Vaccine Tracker shows. That puts Carolina in fourth place for the smallest spread between the two groups among states with the most comprehensive data sets. Other states might be doing as well or better than North Carolina in terms of equality, though huge numbers of incomplete records obscure the national picture.

North Carolina’s success is no accident. The state made equity a priority early on, says Mandy Cohen, Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. To receive shipments, every provider must use the state’s vaccine management system, which requires demographic data to finish registering someone for a shot. That has helped the state track its progress and target certain populations more effectively, Cohen says. ...........(more)

Read more at: https://www.bloombergquint.com/onweb/one-u-s-state-s-laser-focus-on-data-helps-shrink-racial-vaccine-gap

[karynnj]

1. It is great that North Carolina is taking the equity issue very seriously

However, this article does not seem to address that a large part of the discrepancy may come by states giving elders highest priority after healthcare workers. The white population, on average, is significantly older than the black or Hispanic population. That difference may be greater in some states than others.

This article would be fairer if there were no stages used to target who gets the vaccine. Given that the first group everywhere I know of after healthcare providers is the elderly, this difference would account for some of the difference. Here is one article on just how different that is. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/30/most-common-age-among-us-racial-ethnic-groups/

I have watched the Vermont information on the state website and have seen the age distribution by county level. There is a huge difference by age. However, a large part of that difference may be because of age distributions given that most of the people vaccinated this week were the 70 to 74 year olds. Over 74 were vaccinated over the last several weeks. Statewide, 20.2% of whites are vaccinated, but only 9.3% of blacks.

That difference is HUGE, but if Vermont's age distribution is similar to the PEW study, it could be that this is almost entirely based on the percent of each population over 70. Unfortunately, the information on the website, at least to my knowledge, does not allow a multivariate analysis checking to see the % vaccinated by age for each race. https://www.healthvermont.gov/covid-19/vaccine/covid-19-vaccine-dashboard

I know the state had one major vaccine place in Winooski, which is the most diverse town and geographically small - so this location is accessible to those without cars from the town. I know there have been efforts to insure that everyone eligible can get vaccinated. (The second shot is scheduled immediately after you receive the first.)

You can see the percent vaccinated by county by age. Here, one piece of good news - UNRELATED TO DIVERSITY is that statewide, 81.5% of all people over 74 have at least the first shot. In the most diverse county, Chittenden (where Burlington and Winooski are) has 86.9% of the over 74 with at least one shot. Even the 74 plus number has slowly crept up each time there is an update.

I assume that someone at state level (or county or even town level) might be looking at the numbers at a more disaggregated level than the website has. What I would like to see is something looking at what percent of people with the vaccination in the two top age groups by race is. If that is different, it would be a clear signal that access/information needs to concentrate on correcting this inequality.