Pa. community groups key in helping underserved populations get covid vaccine

Community groups, particularly those that work with older and underserved Pennsylvanians, are the next hope for helping those most vulnerable to covid-19 make appointments and get to appointments, as the state’s vaccine rollout continues to move slower than anticipated.

Those community groups can be the missing link for people who are eligible for the vaccine but perhaps do not have internet access, aren’t internet savvy, do not speak English or have no way to travel to a clinic to get to an appointment.

“We need to foster these community-based solutions,” Gov. Tom Wolf said Thursday in a briefing meant to highlight what some community groups have done to help get shots into arms. “Every community in Pennsylvania has unique needs and challenges, but we can learn a lot from listening to one another and lifting up creative solutions that are making a difference in the state’s vaccination efforts.”

In Butler County, the Area Agency on Aging has worked to get more than 1,200 older, eligible residents vaccine appointments, said state Secretary of Aging Robert Torres. He noted that, because of the outreach by the county agency, the no-show rate for those more than 1,200 people is zero.

Torres also pointed to PACE, the state’s low-cost prescription program that has launched a telephone support system to help elderly Pennsylvanians make appointments. Another program, PA Link to Aging and Disability Resources, traditionally works to connect older adults with disability services and has begun taking calls and offering vaccine support.

In Allegheny County, collaboration helped bring hundreds to the UPMC Mercy Outpatient Center on Pittsburgh’s South Side throughout the day, the culmination of outreach by a number of community groups that aim to help underserved populations.

“We’re here vaccinating the most vulnerable members of our elderly community, particularly the ones that have been the most hard-hit by covid because of underlying structural inequities,” said Dr. Maya Ragavan, a UPMC pediatrician and health equity expert.

Those most vulnerable, however, are often the hardest to reach, she said, often without internet access or transportation or who do not speak English. To bridge that gap between the most vulnerable and vaccine access, UPMC worked with a number of community groups, relying on them to spread the word and identify eligible people.

The groups, such as Light of Life Rescue Mission, the United Way and Casa San Jose, helped people make and get to appointments, and they will provide the same support when they are due for their second dose of the two-shot vaccine.

Michele Mehrenberg, 70, of the South Side Slopes neighborhood said she had been trying for close to a month to get an appointment.

“I’ve been looking and trying everywhere, online and on the phone,” she said.

A neighbor mentioned Wednesday that the Brashear Association was helping eligible residents make appointments for the UPMC clinic on the South Side. She reached out, she said, and got a call later indicating she had an appointment.

“That’s how I got here — very happily,” said Mehrenberg from a chair in the observation area of the clinic, having just received her first shot. That call brought with it relief, she said.

“It just felt so good to know I could finally get this over with,” she said.

It’s a common sentiment, said Jerrel Gilliam, executive director of the Light of Life. He said his fear early on in the vaccination process was that those without stable housing or internet access would be left behind.

Frustrations already abound with the state’s vaccine website and the severe lack of available appointments, an issue Wolf and state health leaders have acknowledged again and again and blame on a lack of supply to meet high demand.

“We all know we need to do better,” Wolf said Thursday.

Gilliam said some people can’t even get to the point of trying to navigate the website and look for appointments.

“Then when you do navigate it, your appointment, if you can get one, is in some community miles away from where you live,” he said. “Now it’s, how do you get there? You don’t trust public transportation because you’re fearful of catching covid.”

When he’s told people they’ve secured an appointment and transportation to get there, he said people have been emotional and thankful.

“They really have a sense and this fear that if they got covid, they would die, and they were in fear in their homes while this pandemic rages on,” Gilliam said. “All of a sudden, they get a call and feel like they’re getting their life back.”