The Access To The Health Care Facilities Should Be Improved For The Blacks

Nikki Attkisson | Last Updated : March 19, 2021

Recently there is a weird perception doing rounds that the black Americans are much more hesitant as compared to whites in receiving a COVID-19 vaccine. But in reality roughly the same proportions of white and black respondents said in a recent poll that they are planning on getting vaccinated.

The Access To The Health Care Facilities Should Be Improved For The Blacks

The PBS/NPR Marist/NewsHour survey which was released in the previous week had  found that around 25% of the total black respondents and 28% of the total white respondents have said that they are not planning on getting a shot.

The Access To The Health Care Facilities Should Be Improved For The Blacks

Yet in some of the states, there is a racial disparity seen in the people who have received such a vaccine shot. Dr. Rhea Boyd, a public health advocate and pediatrician in the Bay Area, has said that the misinformation and no access to the health care facilities are some of the bigger impediments for all the blacks rather than the hesitancy in getting vaccinated.

We have known that in the U.S., one out of the five black adults do not likely have a regular provider as others. They generally don’t have a person that they feel like going to whom they can trust for the clinical care. They have also known some black folks which have one of the highest rates of underinsurance and uninsured as she quotes to the new agency.

A Family Foundation, that has been aiding in tracking ethnicity of the people who are receiving COVID-19 vaccines,  said it has found a pattern among the states of black and other Hispanic people that are receiving quite smaller amount of vaccinations as compared to the number of cases and deaths due to the disease as compared to the shares in  the total population.”

In the South of Carolina, for instance, the blacks comprise 26% of the total population yet they have around 16% of the COVID-19 vaccinations as far.

In the previous month, an agency has identified disparities in most of the vaccination sites in the majority of the cities across the South of the U.S. with most of the sites that were placed in the whiter neighborhoods. These health care locations are most likely to be distributed in a way that the vaccination centres tend to be located in the areas that are more affluent and in the whiter parts of town. In these parts medical infrastructure is already known to exist.

Boyd, who had recently written about some lack of the healthcare facilities access for the blacks in the recent news post op-ed, had urged the administration in expanding the network of the health care facilities and placing the clinics primarily right in the Black communities. 

In the post, she also recalls paying a visit to the doctor in the U.S. absolutely free. Covering for people, particularly individuals who are known to be suffering from some of the chronic side effects of chronic discrimination and racial segregation which plays a important role in shaping the outcomes of health.

She thinks that this would go a long way for ensuring that the health system would no longer be under treating the basic requirements of the communities of any color and black folks to be precise as she said.

They know that all the black parents would be vaccinating their kids, she added. In the 1990s, the federal government has said that it would eliminate the cost barrier for vaccinating the children. This government has created a Vaccines for Children program. By the year 2005, there was no gap between black children and any other ethnic and racial groups for the receipt of the recommended vaccines like polio and MMR.


Nikki Attkisson

With over 15 years as a practicing journalist, Nikki Attkisson found herself at Powdersville Post now after working at several other publications. She is an award-winning journalist with an entrepreneurial spirit and worked as a journalist covering technology, innovation, environmental issues, politics, health etc. Nikki Attkisson has also worked on product development, content strategy, and editorial management for numerous media companies. She began her career at local news stations and worked as a reporter in national newspapers.

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