Door-to-door message on COVID safety
Houston Health Department workers target hard-hit area with visits, flyers
Catherine Jackson sat outside her Braeburn apartment on a hot Friday afternoon, wishing her daughter could visit. Her 92nd birthday is Tuesday, she said, but her daughter tested positive for COVID-19 and hasn’t been able to see her in a week.
Jackson lives in one of Houston’s hardest-hit ZIP codes, at the Mar Del Sol apartment complex on Woodfair, an area that city Heath Department workers targeted in their latest efforts to combat the coronavirus.
As workers approached in their orange T-shirts, Jackson greeted them warmly from her chair, along with her dog, Jodi, who stood beside her. The team of six workers had spent their morning going door to door at two apartment complexes in the area, attaching handouts with information to doorknobs. Sometimes, they encountered residents and stopped to explain what they were doing.
“There’s a code on the bottom that will show you where all the testing centers are and any other information you may need,” said one of the workers, who remained distanced from Jackson.
“I’m sitting out here, do I need my mask on?” Jackson asked.
“You do, any time you’re out in a public place,” the worker re
plied. Armed with extra masks, the team passed Jackson a blue surgical mask that she quickly slid on over her ears.
The Houston Health Department canvassed the 460-unit Chestnut Hill apartment complex and the 248-unit Mar Del Sol complex, both in the 77036 ZIP code, which UTHealth ranked as having the fifthhighest positive test rate in Harris County. Data also showed the ZIP code’s positive test rate for Hispanics at about 63 percent and 15 percent for African Americans.
The effort is part of the department’s public information campaign, “Better Together,” or “Todos Juntos. Mejor,” launched in mid-July. It tries to fill information gaps in Houston’s communities through multilingual messaging. The program focuses on four major safety measures: mask wearing, social distancing, hand-washing and COVID testing. With Houston exceeding 1,000 daily positive tests, they seek to drive down positive test rates during August.
Currently, Hispanics make up about 40 percent of Houston’s COVID infections and 45 percent of deaths. African Americans account for 26 percent of COVID deaths, the next highest death percentage, according to city data.
To date, the campaign has sent 71,000 flyers and 71,000 text messages and made 400,000 robocalls since it began, according to Mayor Sylvester Turner. Now, workers are going in person.
“The multilingual, peerto-peer, hands-on touch is really what we’re going for,” said Shekira Dennis, who was distributing information at the complexes Friday. Dennis met a resident who had already been tested, but she still encouraged him to share the information they were passing out.
Dr. Faith Foreman-Hays, deputy assistant director of the Health Department, said rotations of workers will continue outreach in the coming weeks, trying to hit the most vulnerable neighborhoods and apartment complexes within the hardest-hit ZIP codes.
By next week, the Health Department hopes to hit three major ZIP codes— 77036, 77081 and 77099 — working quickly to hang the colorful handouts on doorknobs around the county. “We want to really get this message to them,” Foreman-Hays said. After that, teams plan to head to the Greenspoint area.
Multilingual messaging has been a major focus of the campaign.
“It’s about getting the message out in multiple languages, multiple modalities and strategies, so that the city is saturated with this message,” ForemanHays said. “We’re all in this together.”
As Yancy Balderas, who was canvassing Friday, worked her way through an apartment block, a woman came to her door accompanied by a child. Balderas explained in Spanish why they were passing out information. This kind of interaction was a big emphasis for the campaign.
“There’s no question that we are seeing a huge disparity, probably in the infection rates, but certainly in the seriousness of disease in the Latino community,” said Joseph McCormick, a professor and director of the Hispanic Health Research Center at UTHealth.
Besides information gaps, conditions are exacerbated by multigenerational households and crowded apartment complexes such as Mar Del Sol and Chestnut Hill. McCormick said these kinds of conditions make it hard to social distance.
Martina Akor, 60, who lives at Chestnut Hill, is very worried about the virus, and she supported public information campaigns. She and her family wear masks and practice social distancing, but she also said constant reminders were “very necessary.” She suggested that being able to access and read the information is helpful to those who might not watch the news.
Messaging efforts are not limited to the Health Department. The Southwest Management District, which helps establish and implement district projects and programs, recently partnered with Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital to post information in apartment complexes in the same ZIP code. The efforts have been happening for several weeks, said an organization spokesperson.
“Houston is big, so you can’t do everything for every single person.” said Nisha Harris, 28, who lives at Chestnut Hill but also works with a program combating COVID in Houston. “I do feel like there can be more done. What, exactly, I don’t know. Maybe doing what ya’ll are doing today — knocking on doors.”