© Provided by Kaiser Health News
Concern about their community appears to have played a role in the spike in Hispanic vaccination rates in recent months, which are now equal to those of non-Hispanic whites. The 60% of each group has received at least one dose.
This community awareness, coupled with strong outreach efforts, also appears to have improved the number of Hispanics getting tested for COVID.
On a snowy morning in January, Luis Portillo stood in line with about 200 people on a street in Silver Spring, Maryland, a northern suburb of Washington, DC. Shivering with cold, the 65-year-old baker, an immigrant from El Salvador, awaited his turn to get tested for COVID-19 at Mary’s Center, a federally qualified health center.
Although Portillo was not particularly worried about covid – he is vaccinated, has his booster and had a mild case last year – he went to get tested because it is necessary to “take care of yourself as much as possible” to avoid infecting others who may be more vulnerable, he said in Spanish.
After he developed symptoms after a Christmas party and found out another guest had tested positive, Portillo decided he needed to get tested. He was worried about exposing his co-workers or the four people he lives with.
Similarly, Andrés Bueno, 40, a Colombian construction worker who was also in line, said he, like many others, now has “a little more confidence because we know more about the virus” but still “They worry about affecting other people. I think that is what worries you the most,” he said in Spanish.
Well, that he is vaccinated and intends to get the booster dose, he had also been in contact with someone who tested positive.
The testing boom at Mary’s Center reflects some of the unique needs of its largely Hispanic patient population, many of whom have service jobs. no paid sick leave or live in multigenerational households with older adults who are more at risk of developing a severe form of the disease.
It also reveals a broad sense of collectivism, or a belief in the importance of caring for others in the community, which public health experts say helps drive healthy behaviors among some Latino immigrant groups. That attitude may have motivated these patients to get tested, said Marvin Ruiz-Chavez, who administers testing and vaccinations for Covid at the Silver Spring site.
Three quarters of the patients Mary’s Center, which has five clinics in the Washington metropolitan area, are Hispanic and 65% have incomes below the federal poverty level, according to data from the federal organization Health Resources and Services Administration, the agency that oversees qualified health centers at federal level. When the omicron variant took hold, the demand for core testing skyrocketed.
For many of those who waited hours in lines for testing last month, Mary’s Center offers safe and convenient access to care. Many of his patients are undocumented, speak little English, and have no health insurance, largely shutting them out of the mainstream health care system.
However, the staff at Mary’s Center is bilingual Spanish-speaking, patients can get tested for free with minimal red tape, and are not required to provide information about their immigration status.
Before omicron’s surge, the Silver Spring site was testing an average of 70 people a day, Ruiz-Chavez said. By mid-December, there were already hundreds, forcing the center to limit daily testing to about 200 people due to limited supplies, staff and time.
Testing sites across the country serving a wide variety of groups saw similar increases as Covid cases surged. Still, Ruiz-Chávez cited a common cultural emphasis on living in harmony with others, on coexistence, as a key motivator for Latinos getting tested for COVID, many of whom cited the need to take care of their own health. to protect others from the virus.
Honduran immigrant Carla Velázquez, 27, echoed this sense of responsibility: “We don’t want to be carriers,” she said in Spanish, as she waited covered in a large blanket. Velázquez and her husband, both vaccinated, were exposed to a relative with COVID and felt committed to protecting others who attend their church or gather in other common spaces.
The gap in vaccination rates began to close dramatically over the summer, which has been largely attributed to efforts by the Biden administration to increase access to vaccination in underserved communities, and the local outreach work conducted by culturally credible staff. local organizations and facilitated by federal dollars.
Access has undoubtedly had a strong impact on vaccine uptake in the Hispanic community, especially among immigrants, said Sandra Echeverría, an associate professor of public health education at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. But also the strong sense of community and protecting their jobs and others, she added.
But how much has the collectivism embedded in Hispanic culture, particularly among immigrants and their families, contributed to closing the vaccination gap and driving people to get tested? “There may be a link there, we just don’t know” due to a lack of data and the difficulty of measuring a hard-to-measure concept, said Frank Penedo, a professor of psychology and medicine at the University of Miami.
“I think access was key, and let’s not forget that,” Echeverría said, “but that cultural orientation as well, the sense of community, for oneself and for others, does exist,” and it certainly plays a role.