minorities

Seniors who showed up Monday say the site offered a convenient opportunity to get COVID boosters. Only a limited group of people qualify, but others can get standard vaccinations and testing.

A recent analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation revealed the pandemic has widened existing disparities in health and well-being as well as in academic performance between children of color and white children.

Kerry Sheridan and Stephanie Colombini spent several months listening to groups invested in the health of communities of color. In this episode of Florida Matters, they talk about the project.

The coronavirus pandemic and vaccine rollout have magnified inequities in Florida’s health care system, advocates say.

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.