LYNN — The Baker-Polito administration has launched a targeted outreach initiative to increase vaccine awareness and access to historically underserved communities.
The initiative will invest resources directly into the 20 most disproportionately impacted towns and cities in the state, including Lynn, and $1 million into the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers.
The funds provided to community health centers will increase vaccine confidence and knowledge throughout the community, implement distribution of culturally relevant and linguistically diverse patient education materials, and partner with local community-based organizations to provide more information and tips to engage people in conversations about the vaccine. The Lynn Community Health Center (LCHC) will receive $25,000 of that grant.
Dr. Catherine Reyes, a family medicine doctor at Lynn Community Health Center, said she is relieved and glad that this kind of support is finally happening, but she wishes that it happened sooner.
“We have a duty to get the word out about the vaccine and a duty to give priority to cities like this,” she said. “It has been challenging to do so because we haven’t been made a priority and given many resources. There have been talks about equity for months now, but it’s been totally empty.”
The state Department of Public Health (DPH) will provide resources to the city by working with local leaders and community and faith-based groups to increase existing efforts of vaccine awareness and to overcome skepticism and barriers for residents who are unsure of the safety and reliability of the vaccines.
“People tend to trust their providers most,” Reyes said. “We want to get voices and faces out there that people recognize.”
Lynn Mayor Thomas M. McGee said he is supportive of that, as a recent poll showed that the residents of Lynn rely mostly on the advice and information of their primary care providers.
The city will work with the LCHC, and a liaison from the state, over the next few weeks to determine how the resources will be used. Posters, flyers, communication campaigns and door-knocking were implemented in the past and are highly likely to be used again.
Reyes and her team at LCHC have already formed partnerships with trusted organizations in the community, including churches, Greater Lynn Senior Services (GLSS), Raw Art Works, Girls Inc. and the Lynn Rapid Response Network, to increase outreach. They will be attending Sunday church services to discuss the vaccine and sign people up to receive it, make videos in multiple languages to post on social media, and use their providers to call and inform patients of the safety of the vaccine.
McGee is happy about the support that the administration will be providing to the community and hopes that it can increase the existing outreach with LCHC.
“Working with the board of health and having extra resources is a key piece of ensuring that we get out into the community and churches,” he said. “We will determine the best grass roots for outreach and have a broad range of strategies.”
The DPH initiative comes with tailored support to each community based on the individual needs identified by each municipality. Support may include identifying gaps and mapping available resources to reduce barriers to vaccination, coordinating and supporting key stakeholders, deploying DPH Vaccine Ambassadors, and hiring local residents to provide “boots on the ground” for neighborhood and local business outreach.
“We’ll definitely be working to get some ambassadors to determine the best way to handle it,” said McGee. “We’ll also hold forums in numerous languages so that the information is out there.”
McGee said that the initiative is coming at the right time. It was just announced that the last group in Phase 2 will be eligible to receive the vaccine, starting Thursday.
The Public Health Department is working with a number of paramedics from the Lynn Fire Department to provide mobile vaccinations to the senior housing buildings in Lynn and hope to increase this in the next phases.
“This initiative will help the communities identified as we anticipate to ramp up vaccinations and as we ramp up vaccinations, we need to ramp up advertising,” said McGee. “All of these things are helpful for what we’re trying to do in the city of Lynn. We need to take advantage of every resource.”
The Lynn Tech Field House vaccination site is currently vaccinating 700 patients a day and hopes to increase that number as the availability of vaccines increases throughout each phase.