Vaccine disparities follow ZIP codes
Some Memphis neighborhoods got shots at 4 times rate of others; officials cite priority given to health workers
Data regarding the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine in Shelby County shows stark disparities between neighborhoods, with parts of the Poplar corridor being vaccinated at the highest rates.
The ZIP codes in the two top tiers of vaccinations, between 11,935.5 and 26,657.8 doses per 100,000 members of the population, are all in Germantown, Midtown, Collierville, East Memphis, Arlington, Downtown or Bartlett.
“You can see Germantown and Collierville are doing a lot better, Mud Island probably as well. You have to think about who lives there and what kind
of access they have,” said Elena Delavega, associate professor of social work at the University of Memphis who researches poverty. “Increased access to higher education, to cars, to a computer to snag a vaccine appointment.”
For the ZIP codes with the highest vaccination rate, the rate is four times higher than the ZIP codes with the lowest vaccination rate (26,658 vs. 6,358).
ZIP codes with the lowest rate include Frayser, Egypt/raleigh, North Memphis/new Chicago, Hyde Park and Washington Heights, while the most vaccinated ZIP codes include Germantown and East Memphis.
For ZIP codes with the lowest vaccination rate,
the rate is 2.6 times lower than the total Shelby County average vaccination rate (4,459 vs. 11,396).
The reason some ZIP codes are more heavily vaccinated than others is due to the occupational groups first prioritized in Tennessee’s vaccination plan, said Joan Carr, public information officer for the Shelby County Health Department.
Initially, only frontline healthcare workers and dependent disabled adults were eligible for the vaccine in phase 1a1. Phase 1a2 included outpatient healthcare workers with direct patient exposure.
“People employed in those work sectors may not be evenly disbursed throughout the county, and in fact seem to be more likely to live in certain ZIP codes,” Carr said. “It is also likely that minorities are under-represented among those occupational groups.”
Phase 1b included K-12 teachers, child care workers or other first responders. Phase 1c, which opened Monday in Shelby County, is more broad: It includes Tennesseans 16 years old or older with high-risk health conditions.
“The Health Department expects the vaccine distributions to become more evenly disbursed as more of the vaccine is accessible to everyone, regardless of their age or occupation, and also as vaccination sites are located more evenly throughout the community,” Carr said.
The data is also skewed when it comes to race: of those vaccinated as of Feb. 2, 44.9% were white, 28.4% Black, 15.2% “other”, multiracial or Asian and 11.6% unknown. Just 1.7% were Hispanic or Latino.
That’s despite Shelby County being 40.9% white, 54.3% Black and 6.6% Hispanic or Latino.
“Many partners on the Joint Task Force, including the Health Department are working to encourage vaccination among minority communities, particularly Latinx and African American communities,” Carr said. “Those efforts include targeted outreach to community organizations, including Latino Memphis and also outreach to churches.”
Doug Mcgowen, chief operating officer for the City of Memphis, said the ZIP code data was part of the reason for opening vaccine pods in Raleigh and Whitehaven. The Pipkin pod is also in a central area, able to serve many in the 240-loop, he said.
Mcgowen is now in charge of distribution efforts in Shelby County after vaccine distribution was switched from the Shelby County Health Department to the city upon the state learning of thousands of wasted doses of the vaccine. The county health department is currently under investigation regarding the waste.
Currently, there are five public vaccination pods supported by the city, along with providers in neighborhoods such as Christ Community Health’s clinics. Hospital systems also have a presence in neighborhoods offering vaccines.
“Popup” pods are also important in ensuring that underserved areas can receive vaccinations, Mcgowen said. On Wednesdays, members of the city’s team gather with people leading data analysis from the health department, leadership from Shelby County and pod partners to determine based on the data where a “popup pod” should be located, Mcgowen said.
They might pass up a more heavily vaccinated area in order to place a pod in an area more in need of vaccines, he said.
And those popup pods can be either drive-thru or inside a location, he said.
Delavega, with the University of Memphis, said there are likely many factors contributing to disparities in who has and has not received the vaccine. When drive-thru vaccination sites are the norm, they often aren’t accessible to people without cars. Some people don’t have computer access to register for a vaccine. Others might try the phone number available, only to be left on hold when they have limited phone minutes or have to head to work.
“There are a lot of small, little things that come together to make it more difficult for people in poverty to get a vaccine. Availability of information, access to information, opportunity to be right there when vaccine appointments are available,” she said. “Those are just the logistical and practical ways in which just a small difference in access can make a huge difference in outcome, which is what we’re seeing.”
Fear of vaccines can also be a factor, making education essential, Delavega said.
In order to combat the disparities, those distributing the vaccines need to offer things like walk-thru lines in addition to drive-thru lanes, she said. Perhaps, in addition to the phone line and website registration, they should have people go into neighborhoods to register residents for their vaccine. Maybe “vaccination Saturdays” could be held on the campus of schools within walking distance of neighborhoods, letting everyone come on a first-come basis, she said.
Employers, also, should give their employees the day off to get the vaccine, she said, something that would make a significant difference.
“(The data) says to me that we are treating COVID like we treat everything else and that is we don’t really care about the poor people in Memphis and we still don’t get it that we are in this together,” Delavega said. “We’re really not trying because we don’t care. We have to care. This map should be an incentive to the City of Memphis to say OK, where do we need to go?”
Mcgowen said that some changes are already in the works.
Currently, they’re working with the state to switch the website to the state system, which will allow for scheduling both first and second appointments, and to switch the 222-SHOT number to the state’s telephonic portal. The state’s portal will be manned 24/7 and will have more people answering the phone, lowering wait times and allowing better access for those who need to call outside of work hours.
And, the Memphis and Shelby County Covid-19 Joint Task Force is having many conversations about how to reach vulnerable populations, how to reach people who speak English as a second language and how to find the right messengers, Mcgowen said.
“It’s top of mind for us to address the disparities in the uptake of the vaccine just like there was an disparity in the uptake of the testing,” Mcgowen said. “We are earnest in our desire to get as many people in our community vaccinated as we can so we can reach herd immunity and get back to a sense of normalcy.”
Katherine Burgess covers county government and religion. She can be reached at katherine.burgess@commercialappeal.com or 901-529-2799.