Findings underscore need for racial data, should inform equity strategy for vaccination of 5-11 year olds and boosters

BOSTON – Today the Vaccine Equity Now! Coalition is releasing a new data visualization in partnership with Boston Indicators that depicts the inequities in COVID-19 vaccination rates among 12-19 year olds in Massachusetts. Overall, the scatterplot shows that many communities with higher cumulative incidences of COVID-19 and higher social vulnerability ratings have lower rates of vaccination among 12-19 year olds. Conversely, many communities with lower incidences of COVID and lower social vulnerability ratings have higher rates of vaccination among 12-19 year olds.

“We are nine months into the state’s vaccination program, yet we are still seeing the same inequities that plagued the program from the start. The data visualization we are releasing today shows in no uncertain terms that many of the Massachusetts communities that are most vulnerable in emergencies and have the highest cumulative COVID incidence also have the lowest vaccination rates for 12-19 year olds,” said Dr. Atyia Martin, Co-Chair of the Vaccine Equity Now! Coalition. “We urge the Baker administration to recognize these inequities and use this data to guide their strategy moving forward as eligibility is expanded even further to 5-11 year olds and to the general public for boosters. Furthermore, we continue to urge the Department of Public Health to report vaccination rates by race/ethnicity and age, as well as COVID cases by age at the city/town level, to better understand the racial inequities in vaccinations.”

Read the full release.