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With the end of the national public health emergency approaching on May 11, 2023, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health has committed to continuing to provide free vaccinations, tests, and treatments as long as supplies last. They will be prioritizing uninsured or underinsured people with these resources and services in order to promote equity and health access regardless of insurance status.

This press release announces a campaign launched by the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment to send texts and emails to parents of children aged 5-11 who are due for their next COVID vaccine. It provides parents with context about the importance of the vaccine. The Colorado Immunization Information System, which was set up prior to the COVID-19 pandemic but now includes COVID-19 vaccinations, is used to identify which children are due for an additional vaccination.

Behind every statistic on health outcomes, there are human beings – people, families, and communities. Data visualizations can often overlook this fact but should seek to honor the lived experience of those impacted in inequitable ways. This post explores ways that justice and personhood can be embedded in data visualizations, such as highlighting individual stories within a larger group to humanize quantitative information for the reader.

This guide from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation offers best practices and suggestions in how people can frame discussions on health equity and social determinants. Its focus is on effective rhetoric. This includes the use of accessible language to talk about disparities, leading with arguments that your audience is likely to find agreeable, and focusing messaging on one or two compelling facts.

Johns Hopkins Health System and Baltimore community organizations collaborated to establish a bilingual COVID-19 hotline and implement free COVID-19 testing. When a vaccine became available, partnerships made within these efforts were leveraged and the coalition partnered with the state. This community-based approach was effective at expanding access to the COVID-19 vaccine among low-income Latino immigrants.

This review of state data collection and reporting practices during the COVID-19 pandemic found inconsistencies and gaps in data collected by race and ethnicity. Improved standardization across the U.S.–which may come in the form of a federally-operated centralized database–would address some of the concerns in data representation of all Americans.

The Connecticut Department of Public Health Contact Tracing Program implemented a Community Outreach Specialist program to support COVID-19 contact tracing among vulnerable communities with high proportions of Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, or Haitian Creole-speaking residents.

The Public Health-Seattle and King County evaluated its case investigation and contract tracing program for effectiveness and found that contract tracing helped nearly three in four people surveyed stay in isolation. This demonstrates the value of contact tracing and case investigation as a public health tool for COVID-19 mitigation.

Mask mandates in states beginning in 2020 had a significant impact on COVID-19-related hospitalizations. This study recommends revisiting mask mandates as new variants of COVID-19 spread and pressures return to the healthcare system.

This article identifies levels of vaccine hesitancy and acceptance among people experiencing homelessness. It gives public health practitioners information on ways to address the relatively higher levels of hesitancy among this population and encourages logistical barriers such as transportation to be addressed as part of a larger strategy.