Across America, COVID-19 vaccines are being widely distributed, but not everyone has equal access to vaccines. CommuniVax is a national effort to understand the needs of Black and Hispanic communities as they navigate the pandemic and envision a brighter future post COVID-19.
We have interviewed community members, local community leaders, healthcare providers, parents, and public health experts to find out what is happening locally, and what we need to do going forward.
Below, we have available our published work and reports written by a panel of experts that are part of the larger CommuniVax project. We also have held regular town hall meetings where we provide updates to the COVID-19 pandemic and what is happening on the ground. You can find a link to our videos below.
We have an exciting update for 2022, the project has recieved a second round of funding to sustain the gains we have made. This new year of the project has been renamed CommuniHealth. The CommuniHealth Team of Prince George's will be focusing on creating two guides. One guide will outline how we created the University of Maryland HAIR (Health Advocates In-reach and Research) Barbershop and Beauty salon program. We will provide practical advise and the philosophy of the program so that communities can replicate it. We will also be producing a guide to public communication in public heath based on our own experiences of the COVID-19 town halls and also The Cutting Edge: All Things Health and Wellness.
COVID-19 Resources
Hear the Results
We pulled together everything we heard from our interviews and throughout the community to find out what's going on in Prince George's County and used this information to create the CommuniVax Coalition Prince George’s County Local Report.
We will keep listening and thinking about how we can move forward as a community to heal and grow through the adversity the pandemic has wrought.
We built four core recommendations for going forward, hear about them in our webinar below. To give us feedback on these recommendations, please use this survey: go.umd.edu/CMVeval
Meet our team
Our Reports
National Report #3
A Waypoint on the Path to Health Equity: COVID-19 Vaccination at Month 11
Prince George's County Local Report
The new reports, produced by the local CommuniVax teams, highlight the urgent need to humanize delivery and communication strategies for COVID-19 vaccines, develop better and heterogenous messaging, and anchor COVID-19 vaccination efforts in hard-hit communities in a holistic “whole person” recovery process.
Carrying Equity in COVID-19 Vaccination Forward: Guidance Informed by Communities of Color
Seven months into the COVID-19 vaccination campaign in the United States, nearly 50% of the American population has been vaccinated. While this is a monumental accomplishment, there is still much work to do. This report provides specific guidance on adapting COVID-19 vaccination efforts to achieve greater vaccine coverage in underserved populations and, through this, to develop sustainable, locally appropriate mechanisms to advance equity in health.
Equity in Vaccination: A Plan to Work with Communities of Color Toward COVID-19 Recovery and Beyond
This report provides elected and appointed officials with the tools to create, implement, and support a vaccination campaign that works with Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) communities to remedy COVID-19 impacts, prevent additional health burdens, lay the foundation for unbiased healthcare delivery, and enable broader social change and durable community-level opportunities.
The Public’s Role in COVID-19 Vaccination: Planning Recommendations Informed by Design Thinking and the Social, Behavioral, and Communication Sciences
The report considers human factors in relation to (at the time) future vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, drawing on insights from design thinking and the social, behavioral, and communication sciences. It provides recommendations—directed to both US policymakers and practitioners, as well as nontraditional partners new to public health’s mission of vaccination—on how to advance public understanding of, access to, and acceptance of vaccines that protect against COVID-19.
March Environmental Scan
A review of the resources available in Prince George's County concerning COVID-19
Recent Webinars
Want to do your own workshop?
We had the opportunity to work with Bridgeable, a Human Centered Design Company, who created a step by step guide to putting together your own workshop to understand inequities in your community.
You can use this template to spark conversations about local issues and identity the roadblocks to health in your neighborhood.
During the pandemic, new exciting health programs were developed to address food, housing, education, and vaccination. Going forward toward post-pandemic recovery, what solutions should we keep going in our community, and where do we still need to build new solutions?