A CBS-17 reports black people in North Carolina have received the COVID-19 vaccine at a rate twice as high as several other nearby states that disclose their demographic information. The state Department of Health and Human Services says 10 percent of the more than 238,000 doses of vaccine administered over the past month have been given to Black people. The story also states that the rate trails the group’s proportion of the population, but has grown in the past several weeks.
Crystal Cené, MD, MPH, the UNC Health System Executive Director for Health Equity, recognized that vaccine hesitancy is rooted in distrust. “We’re dealing with having to overcome hundreds of years of structural racism and structural inequities that make people legitimately concerned about government interventions if you will,” said Cené, who is also an associate professor in the division of general medicine and clinical epidemiology. “It’s difficult. It requires a lot of effort. It requires partnerships in the community.”
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