After months of waiting, an efficient COVID-19 vaccine is lastly here. Our brave medical workers, who have been on the cutting edge of this pandemic from the beginning, can continue their essential work of conserving lives without losing their own. As the rollout continues, questions are starting to arise throughout the political and scientific neighborhood about the technique.
The proposed solutions have an important weak spot: persuading communities of color to get the vaccine when it becomes available.
For nearly 45 years, I was a press reporter and anchor for WUSA9 TELEVISION, the CBS station in Washington, D.C. Much of that time was invested in the streets engaging with people in black and brown working and poor communities. Now, I follow the news of the brand-new vaccine and how it is being interacted– or, more properly, miscommunicated– to individuals in those exact same neighborhoods.
Mistrust of the medical status quo runs deep in these communities. Bring up a chair at the famous Ben’s Chili Bowl or start a conversation at a Black Lives Matter march and you’re bound to hear suspicions surrounding the federal government and the establishment.
The apprehension about the medical neighborhood is real, and based in no little part on a long line of atrocities: the Tuskegee syphilis experiments, the deceptiveness involved in the Henrietta Lacks cancer cell research study, and the systemic racial inequalities in health care that still exist today.
Listing out truths about the vaccine won’t cultivate trust in a neighborhood that has borne an out of proportion share of social ills. Let’s not forget that many months back, at the start of the COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S., this neighborhood felt they were not being informed the whole story of why the infection was disproportionately affecting black and brown people.
It was not just because of pre-existing medical conditions (as was first discussed by doctors).
And yet leaders appear baffled as they plead with Black and brown neighborhoods to take the coronavirus vaccine as it becomes available. The list of people embracing a “take my word for it” approach is outstanding. It consists of President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, previous President Barack Obama, and Anthony Fauci, MD.
This technique is well-intended, however it will not get us where we need to be.
To fix this absence of trust, we need to deal with the anger and frustration that these Black and brown communities are feeling head-on. I have actually repeatedly heard that the only time the Black neighborhood gets noticed is when something goes terribly incorrect or when their vote is required. This time has to be different, and the message can’t simply be, “you need to take this vaccine due to the fact that we state so.”
First: We have to reveal that we care. Healthcare experts, health teachers, and neighborhood ambassadors need to be geared up to help resolve the obstacles these communities experience.
Second: As we believe about who will drive the message, we need to understand who the real influencers in these neighborhoods are and what influences them.
Third: As we reach out to these influencers, we need to apologize for the previous indifference revealed to them and explain that we are identified not to leave anyone behind going forward.
These techniques are simply the start. Centuries of distrust is entrenched amongst the very individuals who many require relief from this pandemic. As we look to the future, authenticity and ground-level engagement need to be the beginning point. We can not merely inform people what we think they require to hear to be encouraged– we need to listen to neighborhoods’ concerns, comprehend their point of view, and develop customized products and messages that talk to and resolve their fears.
When we think about how we ought to start the discussion, we have to engage with community leaders– with genuine individuals in these communities, not celebs.
Bruce Johnson is a retired 44- year broadcast journalist and present executive interaction coach at 3D Communications
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