Ramsey County Medical Reserve Corp: Medical Volunteer

Increasing COVID-19 Vaccination Rates in Ramsey County

by Anushka Fernando

Background

Individuals that live in redlined neighborhoods throughout the country are at greater risk for the development of severe disease and illness. Specifically, the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately affects people of color that live in low socioeconomic neighborhoods. It is known that the COVID-19 vaccination significantly decreases the chances of severe disease. However, there is hesitancy among vulnerable communities to receive the vaccine due to systemic racism in our country.

Research published by the Minnesota Department of Health suggests that low socioeconomic status increases the chance that an individual’s health is impacted by environmental conditions. Due to redlined practices in the Twin Cities, people living in poverty are more likely to live in areas with low-quality housing and be near to traffic and crowding. They suggest that living close to heavily populated areas and busy roads puts individuals at risk for the development of severe respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, such as COVID-19. Air quality and environmental exposure is a catastrophic outcome of redlining practices that place predominantly Black neighborhoods in crowded areas near highways. For example, in the Rondo neighborhood in St. Paul, Minnesota, the construction of I-94 in the 1960s left individuals that were redlined to live in close proximity to poor air quality and environmental exposures caused by motor vehicles. Consequently, many individuals living in these areas have pre-existing conditions, such as asthma, that lead to severe respiratory disease in COVID-19. The goal of the Ramsey County Medical Reserve Corp is to instill trust in the vaccine to ensure vulnerable individuals receive the vaccine to prevent severe disease.

My Work

For my CGH project, I was a medical volunteer with the Ramsey County Medical Reserve Corp (RCMRC) The RCMRC is a group of health professionals and volunteers that are called upon by local public health departments to respond to public health emergencies. There was a great need for volunteers at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. When I began to volunteer for the RCMRC, I was assigned to local vaccination clinics in underserved communities in Ramsey County. The RCMRC would host walk-in vaccination clinics for individuals that are not vaccinated. I had various roles at these vaccination clinics. One of my roles was to greet individuals at the door and explain to them about the consent forms and answer any vaccine-related questions. Another role that I had was to be an observer to look for signs of anaphylaxis or lightheadedness after an individual received the COVID vaccine.

My CGH project is a prime example of how volunteers can make an impact on the health of local communities. As an RCRMC volunteer, we were placed in areas where there was high vaccine hesitancy. Vaccine hesitancy can be traced back to the structural racism that persists in our country. Mistrust and hesitancy in our healthcare system stems from the lack of representation from people of color in research. Specifically, black people in America have historically been taken advantage of for the purpose of ‘advancing’ healthcare (e.g. Tuskegee Syphilis Study).

Most of the vaccine clinics that I volunteered at were located in the Rondo neighborhood of St. Paul. The Rondo neighborhood is disproportionately at risk for poor health outcomes due to historic redlining. Additionally, it was found that people of color are more hesitant to receive the COVID vaccine. Throughout my training to be a volunteer, we were educated on the local vaccination rates and found that Black and Hispanic individuals were less likely to be fully vaccinated in St. Paul (thus, the need for local free vaccination clinics in the Rondo neighborhood). The vaccination of these individuals can drastically improve health outcomes within the community if they were to be infected with COVID.

My education in CGH has helped me understand the importance of local community health workers, such as the volunteers for the RCMRC. Community health workers are an essential part of communities that have mistrust in the healthcare system. As we have seen with the COVID pandemic, health disparities and discrimination still exist in our healthcare system. The work of the RCMRC aims to tackle these health disparities to regain that lost trust between community members and the healthcare system.

Lessons Learned

My experience as a volunteer for the RCMRC was impactful because it gave me the opportunity to go out into the community and apply my knowledge of health disparities and more importantly improve the health of a vulnerable community. Volunteering in the local community is imperative to reach underrepresented individuals who may not have the resources to go to a hospital or local clinic. I aim to take the knowledge that I learned from this experience and from the CGH concentration into the hospital as an aspiring nurse. I’ve been inspired to not only work in the hospital but to expand my work into the local community.

Anushka Fernando

Hello everyone! I am from Silver Spring, Maryland. I am a Biology major with a minor in Psychology and a concentration in Community and Global Health. I am a part of the baseball team at Macalester. In my spare time, I enjoy outdoor activities, watching sports, and spending time with friends and family. After Macalester, I plan to attend graduate school for nursing at Johns Hopkins University.

Image Credits:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-13/dozens-of-cities-dub-racism-a-public-health-crisis

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