OC’s Latino community remains behind on COVID-19 vaccines one year later

OC’s Latino community remains behind on COVID-19 vaccines one year later

“Latinos have also been neglected, quite frankly, by our public health system — obviously at all levels and in the way the politics have operated during COVID,” said Alana LeBrón, a UC Irvine [assistant professor of public health] who focuses on how structural racism produces public health inequities. … “Everybody’s busy and sometimes it’s not really just about the vaccine hesitancy or anything like that — sometimes it’s just about convenience, convenience, convenience. This strategy assumes that if you offer it and lower the threshold of activation, people will take you up on it and I think it’s very smart,” said Dr. Shruti Gohil, an infectious disease doctor who treats COVID patients at the UCI Medical Center [and assistant clinical professor, School of Medicine]. … Epidemiologists, like Daniel Parker, [UCI assistant professor of public health], also agree school sites are foundational in reducing vaccine disparities.