Blog 4 - Interviews Galore

 We have had many interviews in the past few days. 

We interviewed Taneisha Fair, who works at Cleveland Comunity Center. She helped write an article on the Center for Community Solutions Blog titled “Inability to miss work contributed to vaccine hesitancy and likely, lower vaccination rates”. This post showed how the same areas of the county that have both lower vaccination rates and more low-wage workers are also the communities that have more people of color than the affluent communities with higher vaccination rates. These communities are more on the east side of Cuyahoga county, zip codes like 44103, 44104, 44106, 44108, and many others. Refer to my last post for more details about the article. She talked to us about an issue that has

come from discussions around Black people and the vaccine that I hadn't talked about before. She talked about how she has heard a lot of people attribute that because of the Tuskegee syphilis trials, Black people don't want to get the vaccine. However, she herself did not consider the Tuskegee trials when she got the vaccine. Something interesting that I took away from our interview was the danger of generalizations like these. It's dangerous to make the assumption that due to "x" Black people don't want to get the vaccine because it ignores the actually valid reasons, such as health-related concerns, mistrust, and hesitancy, that Black people are hesitant to get the vaccine. It also is a way to ignore and not serve those in need because they "don't want to receive help".

We also talked to Brook Watts, who is a physician from MetroHealth who works on targeted community outreach in respect to administering the COVID-19 vaccine. She gave us a really good

quote about hesitancy, saying that "hesitancy or lack of acceptance is not an excuse for not providing access". She also didn't like the word hesitancy when talking about the Black community, because she found that in running vaccine clinics in communities where Black people held the majority, Black seniors showed up at a rate that mirrored the population. However, as the age groups decreased, hesitancy did become an issue. Additionally, none of the seniors she worked with mentioned Tuskegee.

We talked to Jamal Trice, a friend of Waverly Willis' who talked about his experience getting the vaccine along with telling us about vaccine hesitancy in his own community and how members of his community thought about the vaccine.  He also refuted Dr. Book Watt's point about how she didn't like the word hesitancy and didn't think there was hesitancy in general about Black people wanting to get the vaccine. He helped us learn more about how trust is very important in terms of getting community members to get the vaccine and spread the right information.

We talked to Jennie Becker, a science teacher at Hawken School, who started the Teens For Vaccines club that helps community members book appointments to get their COVID-19 vaccine. She talked to us about her experiences. The vaccine appointments in the past few months have been hard to get at times, and the club has helped many overwhelmed community members get their vaccines. She is an example of how any community member can get involved in improving equity in terms of the vaccine. 

We interviewed Marilee Santiago, who works at MetroHealth. She has helped with targeted community outreach in the LatinX community. She spoke to us about how it's really important to get on the level of community members. One of the important things in doing so is interacting with them in their native, most comfortable language. In this case, Spanish. Ms. Santiago helped Hispanic families get access to the vaccine, as well as dispel myths and misinformation and spread the right information about the vaccine. 

We talked to Dr. Jennifer Cullen, an epidemiologist who studies cancer disparities. She gave us a good opinion about the CDC's new guidelines about fully vaccinated people not having to wear their masks. She also gave us a view of how the inequities that have come through due to the disparities in vaccinations also mirror the inequities that have influenced cancer disparities. 

Throughout this process, we interacted with our guests through email and planned out all our bookings ourselves. We also learned how to schedule and run We ran a total of 7 interviews on Squadcast and now have hours of content to go through and edit. How fun! 

Until next time, 

-Wilson