Vaccine hesitancy culprit for 93701 zip code’s low vaccination rate
.JPG "A crossing guard outside of Tehipite Middle School on Nov. 12. The 93701 zip code, low in vaccination rates, is home to the school.")
When it comes to vaccination rates in the 93701 zip code, vaccine hesitancy is the reason that area – with a 47.3% vaccination rate in early November – was the lowest in the city, according to Fresno County Department of Public Health officials.
Three weeks later, the county’s COVID-19 immunization dashboard showed, that vaccination rate went up 2% in 93701, from Nov. 10 to 49.3% coverage as of Dec. 1, with 5,939 of the total population with at least one dose administered but still not hitting the 50% mark.
That particular zip code has a total population of 12,056 people in a 1-square-mile area roughly west of First Street and between Olive and Divisadero before slimming down to south of Belmont at Blackstone and continuing west to H Street.
Its neighbor to the north, 93703 fares better with 54.9% coverage of its 33,175 residents; while to the east, 93702 had 52.1% coverage of 49,481 as of Dec. 1. All three zip codes are in the Healthy Places Index or HPI Equity State Quartile 1 which means they are among the most-health burdened, most-health impacted and-most impoverished communities in the state.
For Fresno County, 70 percent of the entire population lives in quartile 1, said county’s health officials.
But beside hesitancy, the county health department and community-based organizations have struggled in getting 93701 residents vaccinated. The area is 80.8% Latino.
“Why is there vaccine hesitancy? You know, there’s a challenge with misinformation with that, and that is something we have to address every day. So, I think vaccine hesitancy is a very top level,” said Joe Prado, interim assistant director for Fresno County Department of Public Health.
Lack of access to health care
Prado said other things to consider are:
▪ Does the community know when to access health care?
▪ Are they used to accessing health care for preventative measures?
▪ How many actually go and get an annual physical?
▪ How many actually do a diabetes screening, a high blood pressure screening, do an STD screening?
▪ How many actually do that?
▪ Which is considered preventative type medicine, how many of them actually have a doctor that they go see on a routine basis?
“What you see statistically throughout the research is that communities that are more impoverished, communities that are more health burden, they’re less prone to access health care services,” Prado said, adding that “trying to teach somebody that a vaccine is preventative is something very new to our community in 93701 and to 70 percent of our population at minimum. To access health services when you’re not sick is something fairly new.”
Prado said that more than likely is that part of the population doesn’t access health care and don’t have a primary health care home.
Sandra F. Celedón, Fresno Building Healthy Communities president/CEO, agrees.
For a year, Fresno BHC has been working through the COVID equity project to increase outreach and engagement and vaccination efforts in priority zip codes, like 93701, predominantly south Fresno zip codes, where they know there are a lot of community folks that don’t have access to medical provider or primary care provider and also experience transportation and other access issue to get to health care resources like vaccinations, Celedón said.
Her group has partnered with 17 other community base organizations, along with medical providers, to host the vaccination clinics in neighborhoods.
“So now, during a major response, you have to teach all of that in a very short amount of time and you’re trying to change the behaviors towards to be more preventative in a short amount of time,” Prado said. “So, I think those are the challenges we have, is our community really looking at preventative medicine as a priority and we’re just seeing that challenge.
Another challenge to consider, Celedón said is the physical environment of the 93701-zip code Lowell and Jefferson neighborhoods, which is “literally in the heart of the city of Fresno that is kind of boxed in by freeways.”
Celedon said the development of Highways 180 and 41 divided the community and cut it from resources outside of the immediate neighborhood.
“The physical composition of the neighborhood makes it really hard for folks to access resources. It’s also really telling that this is the same zip code that has the Community Medical Center,” Celedón said, calling out the “lack of investment by our hospital system in prevention. And so, part of that prevention is vaccinations.”
Celedón said the root cause is that for so long the focus was on patching illness instead of addressing prevention and connecting people to primary care, especially in a zip code that is predominantly people of color.
Fresno County Health officials said that there has been vaccine education in 93701 through their county contracts.
“They’ve been done by a variety of different CBOs, just to name a couple is our Building Healthy Communities, Reading and Beyond, FIRM. Also, our disability coalition has done some educational events in that area there,” said Prado.
Prado said they have done approximately six vaccine clinics in that zip code that the county has authorized directly within that area.
He said the county was prioritizing the schools in that area and vaccine clinics because the zip code did have a higher infection rate than some other neighboring zip codes.
Prado said there are other CBOs out there that get money from the state and other avenues that do vaccine education in the city and county and are not paid directly by the health department.
Partnerships with the Fresno Unified School District
The 93701 zip code is home to Lowell, Jefferson, Yokomi and Webster elementary schools as well as Tehipite Middle School.
“We have held vaccination clinics at 18 of our middle and high schools, including Tehipite,” said Nikki Henry, chief communications officer for Fresno Unified.
Henry said at Tehipite Middle School, flyers in English, Spanish and Hmong were “used for outreach through PeachJar and principals were also asked to send a SchoolMessenger message to their families to promote the events.”
At Tehipite, the free vaccination clinics were held Sept. 30 (first dose) and Oct. 21 (second dose) for ages 12 and up with Pfizer and Johnson and Johnson being the two vaccine options.
“The clinic was open to anyone, but marketed to students, families and staff,” Henry said, adding that for the Tehipite clinic the district worked with BHC as the host organization, and Pinnacle was the vaccination provider. “The Fresno County Department of Public Health approved those providers and funded the clinics.”
BHC partnered with the school district in September for vaccination clinics at middle schools and high schools, including staffing the Tehipite vaccination clinic.
“Our goal was to get at least 100 people between the ages of 12 to 18 vaccinated. And we ended up doing 90 doses,” Celedón said. Because it was a quick turnaround for scheduling and implementing the clinics, she was pleased with the turn out.
“But overall, it does take a lot of engagement. I mean, we’ve been out knocking on doors, talking to people and riding them to the clinics, making sure that we provide with any registration assistance that’s needed. And so, it does take those relationships to get people out to the school sites,” Celedón said.
Incentives for people to get vaccinated including receiving a $25 gift card as well as Fresno Unified swag. People were also entered into a raffle for additional prizes for youth 12-17 while supplied lasted.
“We promoted through a press conference, district social media, our website, and through messages from our Superintendent,” Henry said of the district vaccination clinics throughout the district middle schools and high schools. “We coordinated these events with the Fresno County Department of Public Health, several CBO partners (Immigrant Refugee Coalition, African American Coalition, Centro La Familia, etc.), and a few healthcare partners (Saint Agnes/Tzu Chi, Pinnacle, UCSF Fresno).”
Since the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) approved the vaccine for 5-11 year olds in late October and early November of 2021, Henry said now the school district is working with the California Department of Public Health to provide vaccination clinics at 32 of the 65 district’s elementary schools starting the week of Nov. 15.
With the California Department of Public Health being an additional resource to help carry out vaccination clinics at the elementary schools, Celedon said “we’re looking forward to supporting those activities as well because we know that elementary schools are actually closer, in the neighborhoods than the middle schools or the high schools.”
By having vaccination clinics at the elementary school, Celedón said, it provides better access to vaccinations since most people can walk to their local elementary school which helps to eliminate any physical barriers to get people to the clinics.
“Both Anthony and Jackson will host clinics which are both feeder schools to Tehipite as well. These vaccination clinics will serve our students and our staff for their first dose, second dose, booster shots, and/or their flu shot,” Henry said. “We’ve directed folks who still have questions about the vaccine and its safety to the Fresno County Department of Public Health’s website for reliable information.”
New opportunities
Prado said that with 5-11 recently getting approved to get vaccinated, is a great opportunity to improve the vaccination rate in 93701, which is an area that tends to have more families and younger in demographics.
“Our messaging, our focus is going to be now we can protect the entire family and that is responsibilities of every parent is to protect the family. I think that message is going to resonate with the 93701,” Prado said. “And I think that’s going to start turning a little more people towards getting vaccinated. And so, everybody wants to protect their child. And this is something that everybody has to take seriously. And we now can’t protect our 5- to 11-year-olds.”
With the focus on Familia, Prado said “ that’s going to be the next 60 days approach in this particular zip code, is to really focus in on that, and see what we can, what we can achieve.”
With the holidays here, people in the 93701 like other zip codes want to hang out with their families, Prado is encouraging families to so safely.
“Let’s do it safely by getting vaccinated and really enjoy our holidays and make it a COVID free holiday. So, the only way we’re going to get there is to get everybody vaccinated in every household,” Prado said.
“Looking at zip codes where vaccination rates are still lagging behind, where there’s a high population of young people, students and children and their families. So, our goal is to is to get all of our folks vaccinated. We want to make sure that everyone’s able to stay safe,” Celedón said.
This content is made possible through a grant from the Latino Community Foundation.
María G. Ortiz-Briones: 559-441-6782, @TuValleTuSalud
Esta historia fue publicada originalmente el 3 de diciembre de 2021, 0:45 p. m. with the headline "Vaccine hesitancy culprit for 93701 zip code’s low vaccination rate."
