How this Fort Worth community dismantled COVID vaccine barriers for Latinos

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How this Fort Worth community dismantled COVID vaccine barriers for Latinos

Brian Lopez
·5 min read

Many people in the Diamond Hill community do not speak or read English, do not own cars and have a general mistrust in government institutions and the health care system, making it difficult for them to access the coronavirus vaccine.

For weeks, Edith Avila has sought to bring down the barriers that her Latino community faces.

Avila, 44, has served as a bridge between her people and the coronavirus vaccine, registering neighbors with her personal email, driving folks to their appointment and advocating for the residents of the largely Hispanic Diamond Hill neighborhood.

She has seen a close family member and one of her best friends and her friend’s mother die of COVID-19. If she could do anything to stop more people from dying, she said, it is to provide her time. She has taken people to their appointments in Arlington, Mansfield and Lake Worth.

“I tried to help them because I hope I can be saving their lives,” she said. “In case they get the disease, they’ll be more protected.”

The Diamond Hill area has one of Tarrant County’s worst COVID-19 vaccination rates with only 4.23% of the population receiving at least one dose, according to county data. Only 4,676 of the neighborhood’s 39,900 residents have registered.

The coronavirus vaccine isn’t available for everyone yet, but Hispanics and people of color in general are more likely to have underlying health conditions that make them eligible for the vaccine, according to the Mayo Clinic.

The reality in large Hispanic and Latino communities like Diamond Hill is that people face multiple obstacles to obtain health care and the coronavirus vaccine rollout has only exacerbated the issue, community members and experts say.

Avila said oftentimes her family and friends fear the vaccine, citing that they don’t know what’s in it or how it can affect them.

People like Avila, who speaks English and Spanish and understands the importance of the vaccine, have proved to be essential in communities that have low vaccination rates despite the large percentage of residents at risk of dying from COVID-19.

“A lot of people are scared,” she said. “They believe what someone else says, like ‘Oh, you don’t know what’s going to happen if you get the shot’.”

The Latino community’s distrust of American health care dates to the late 1960s and early 1970s when Mexican women were forcibly sterilized, said Isabel Montemayor, a research assistant at UT Arlington’s Center for Mexican-American Studies

This distrust and fear has continued and has taken prominence during the pandemic and the vaccine rollout. Latinos aren’t only scared of side effects but also if they are going to be asked about their immigration status, Montemayor said.

Vaccine providers are not allowed to ask people for immigration status and must vaccinate anyone who is eligible.

That’s when people like Avila act as advocates in their communities. As soon as she got the vaccine, Avila told her friends and neighbors about the easy the process and minimal side effects.

This prompted more people to register, she said.

Montemayor said she has found the most trusted source of information among Latino communities is word of mouth from the people they know. For Latinos, the most trusted places are usually churches.

This rings true for Fernando Peralta, president of Las Familias de Rosemont.

“Our little bubble was going to church for Mass and the people that we had at church, that was our community,” Peralta said.

Access to the vaccine

Tarrant County has struggled with an equitable distribution of the vaccine. Most of those who have received the vaccination are from white, affluent neighborhoods. In response, the county teamed with UNT Health Science Center to address the issue.

Community efforts such as Avila’s and registration events hosted by Roxanne Martinez, a Diamond Hill community leader, have boosted registrations and vaccinations of Hispanics, said Vinny Taneja, the county’s public health director.

Early in the county’s vaccination efforts, about 5% of the county’s vaccines were going to Hispanic or Latinos. Now, that number has doubled.

Recently, MedStar has vaccinated Diamond Hill residents at the Diamond Hill Community Center. They administered about 335 doses in February, said Matt Zavadsky, a MedStar spokesperson. People respond better to going to places that they are familiar with, he said.

MedStar receives doses directly from the state and has asked for more as officials want to keep having COVID-19 vaccination clinics in minority neighborhoods.

A more permanent site could come to north Fort Worth, closer to Diamond Hill, as Tarrant County and UNT Health Science Center seek to open more sites in minority neighborhoods. The partnership recently announced a vaccination site in Stop Six.

When the pandemic first started, a lot of information was online and in minority communities, that access wasn’t there, said Teresa Wagner, an assistant professor at UNTHSC. She found in her research that they needed community partners to get information out.

In these sign-up events, Martinez has also made sure each person gets fliers with information in either English or Spanish. For the most part, she says she sees a lot of concerns about immigration, not enough information and sites not being as accessible.

Montemayor said Latinos need to be made a priority and a concentrated effort must be made to get them inoculated and informed.

Martinez, who has hosted sign-up events in Diamond Hill and will host another one on March 27 along with Peralta, said she believes Latinos aren’t lining up in hoards to get the vaccine because the health care system is hard to navigate for Spanish-speakers only.

As someone who is college educated and has more resources than others, Martinez still had difficulties maneuvering the health care system when she was diagnosed with breast cancer 10 years ago.

“I can only imagine how difficult it is for someone with fewer resources than myself,” she said. “ People often overlook how much your health affects every other part of your life.”

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