Coalition addresses mistrust of COVID-19 vaccine among African Americans
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The Indiana Minority Health Coalition is pushing to address COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among African Americans. That’s why the group held a virtual meeting on Friday with medical experts and other community leaders to answer any questions about the vaccine.
“We have a responsibility to give the most up-to-date information,” said IUPUI Assistant Professor Joseph L. Tucker Edmonds.
“We have a responsibility to confirm to them that they’re going to get safe and thoughtful care,” said Edmonds.
During the event, people heard from a disease specialist, as well as Edmonds, who talked about why Black adults are reluctant to get vaccinated. He says there’s a history of medical mistrust among the Black community and that recent reports show many Black adults won’t have access to culturally competent care. They can’t find doctors that understand the racial and ethnic issues they’re facing.
“So we need to read this hesitancy within the large frame of what has happened over the course of the last 200 years of African Americans and their relationship to the medical industrial complex,” said Edmonds.
Dr. Lauren Nephew, a transplant hepatologist at IU Health, says there was a lot to think about before getting vaccinated, including times she faced discrimination in the health care system.
“I could talk to you about my own experiences in the hospital giving birth that where I was discriminated against,” said Nephew. “I could tell you about times I had to call the hospital and advocate on my mother and my sister and my cousin’s behalf and pulled a doctor’s card because they were being mistreated.”
But Nephew says she reached out to infectious disease doctors of color and ultimately got vaccinated.
“I read all the trials because I’m a scientist. I looked at all the tables and then finding people that I trusted, infectious disease doctors of color,” said Nephew. “I talked to them; I called them up, (said) ‘What do you think?’ So finding trusted messengers to try to figure out, ‘Hey, what do you think of this vaccine?’”
Some of the panelists from the event are encouraging people to talk with trusted physicians for more information about the COVID-19 vaccines.