Promoting Health Equity During a Pandemic: Approaches to Address Vaccination Burden and Health Inequities Amongst Under-Served Populations in U.S. and Mexico

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Background

Racialized ethnic minority, low-income, Medicaid-eligible people, persons whose primary language is not English, and even migrant farmworkers are overrepresented in blue collar jobs that are essential to the critical infrastructure of the United States, such as the food supply chain, construction, agriculture, manufacturing, mining, maintenance. However, they simultaneously occupy a socially marginal position and therefore are often underserved by institutions. This social positioning results in COVID-19 related health inequities for these workers. The ineffective response with these workers is often blamed on the fact that they are "hard to reach" due to factors such as limited English proficiency, rural locations, unapproachable community, and lack of resources. However, this designation hides the fact that the current programs have not been developed to meet their needs. From this perspective these workers can be seen, not as "hard to reach", but rather as "hardly reached".

This Research Topic will highlight interventions that demonstrate that when appropriate approaches are used in programs, these underserved populations are not difficult to reach at all. With a focus on highlighting effective examples of community Public Health collaboration to address the limitations of Public Health institutions in reaching these populations. The hope is that the lessons learned, and models presented in this special issue will serve to build a more inclusive Public Health infrastructure to address endemic health inequities as well as better prepare for the next pandemic.

The Topic Editors welcome articles encompassing not just COVID-19 vaccinations but all COVID-19 response activities geared towards addressing border-health disparities across US-Mexico communities with the aim of facilitating collaboration and accelerated efforts on a measurable scale.

Contributors are strongly encouraged to address the following themes:

1. How to meet the immediate needs of the persistent on-going health inequities during the pandemic (not necessarily COVID-19 related) and integrate these lessons into partnerships that creates a more inclusive public health system moving forward.

2. Articles inclined towards what has been done through successful models and networks of essentially extending healthcare access/services to hardly-reached communities, and how these models can be replicated in other communities, organizations, and countries.

The outcome is to encourage effective programs, surveillance, data-driven academic paper, epidemiologic studies, reports, perspectives, and interventions related to social/health inequalities with extensive information on the success, challenges and concerning dynamics encountered when delivering these initiatives, and the advancement towards a post-pandemic health equity.

Keywords: COVID-19, Vaccination, Under-served populations, Health equity, Community health

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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