As the holidays approach, so does the risk of COVID and flu infection.
Unfortunately, only 16% of adults in the United States have received a COVID-19 booster vaccine as of last month, and only 38.7% have received this year’s flu vaccination.
The statistics for Black Americans are even more alarming, with only 10.7% having received the COVID booster and 33.5% the updated flu vaccine.
The racial gap has drastically narrowed since the first COVID vaccines became available nearly two years ago, when the vaccination rate for Black Americans was half that of white people in the United States. Still, by May of this year, only 50% of Black Americans had received at least one dose of the COVID vaccine, compared with 55% of White Americans.
In Chicago, city data show that only 6.1% of Black residents and 5.4% of Latinos, compared with 17.7% of whites and 12.2% of Asians, are up-to-date on their COVID-19 vaccination series.
Vaccine equity has been a priority of the National Urban League and our nationwide network of affiliates since the first rollout. In response to the early drastic disparity, we commissioned a poll, in partnership with the Alliance of National Psychological Associations for Racial and Ethnic Equity, examining attitudes toward vaccination.
According to our findings, access, not hesitancy, was the primary driver of racial disparity in vaccination rates, contrary to the “blame-the-victim” media narrative that prevailed at the time.
Among those who were hesitant, the primary barrier was concerns about vaccine safety, much of it stemming from misinformation and conspiracy theories. We immediately recognized our challenge not only to advocate for equitable access to vaccines, but also to employ trusted messengers such as public health professionals, community leaders, and neighbors to address concerns about the vaccine’s safety.
Politics, race and vaccines
I was proud to join a group of trusted clergy in my own community who received the vaccine publicly in an effort to build trust.
That’s why we partnered with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the ALL IN campaign, helping to inform Black Americans about the vaccines and to empowered them to make the best decisions for them, their family and their communities.
We enlisted our affiliates, including the Chicago Urban League, to use proven electoral outreach strategies, such as phone banking, neighborhood canvassing, or hosting telephone town halls, to engage Black and African American communities directly about vaccines. We trained trusted messengers to participate in text bank campaigns to inform communities on the recommended fall vaccine schedule, knocked on doors to extend invitations to local vaccine events, and offered their expertise to answer questions about the vaccines during local telephone town halls.
Thanks to the efforts of the National Urban League and other racial justice groups, vaccine hesitancy among Black Americans has declined. In fact, the primary the primary predictor of vaccine hesitancy is not race, but political party affiliation, according to a survey by KFF.
Overcoming vaccine hesitancy is just part of the battle. The structural and institutional racial inequities the National Urban League exposed in our State of Black America® report, “Unmasked” still persist. While the Affordable Care Act has drastically expanded health insurance coverage and narrowed the racial gap, 10% of Black Americans remain uninsured, compared with 6.7% of whites. Black Americans are 50% more likely to go without health care due to cost. Black children are nearly twice as likely to rely on emergency rooms as their only source of health care.
The most recent National Urban League Equality Index, a calculation of the economic and social status of Black Americans relative to whites, was 84.0% for health. Keeping up to date on vaccinations, especially during this holiday season, is one way we can work to bring the Index to 100%
Marc H. Morial is president and CEO of the National Urban League. He served as mayor of New Orleans from 1994 to 2002 and is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the Georgetown University Law Center.
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