minorities

Jane Gilbert is the newly appointed interim chief heat officer for Miami-Dade. She has a task force focused on variables that make lower-income communities vulnerable to heat-related adversity.

In an effort to ease the disparities in vaccination rates of communities of color, county officials and a local organization are teaming up to offer vaccine sites in St. Petersburg.

Black Americans' vaccination rates still trail other groups, while Hispanics show improvement. In Florida, 26% of white people have received a COVID-19 shot, compared with 13% of Blacks.

The state Department of Health said only 7% of the vaccinated people have been identified as Black, but 66% as white, 15% as "unknown" and 11% as "other."

Language barriers and other factors can make it harder for Latino residents to get vaccinated in Florida. Community groups and government agencies are trying to change that.

It's not a matter of vaccine hesitancy, say advocates. Instead, poorly located clinics, lack of flexible appointments and other barriers to access are hampering Philadelphia's hardest-hit communities.

The CDC has declared that racism is a serious threat to public health. It’s a threat shows up in doctors’ offices and hospitals. For Black women seeking an OB-GYN, that experience can be especially difficult.

Surveys show that support for COVID-19 vaccines is rising among Black and Latino populations, now that tens of millions of Americans have safely received the shots.

The goal is to reach seniors who struggle to access public sites or are apprehensive about going to them. It's helping underserved communities get vaccinated.

Only about 1 percent of people vaccinated in Sarasota County are Black. Advocates say the distribution process puts underserved communities at a disadvantage. They're fighting to change that.