Care Like King Health & Wellness Fairs

On Saturday, January 14, 2023, Sleeves Up Shelby County held its second annual MLK Days of Service Health and Wellness festivals at the Orange Mound Community Center and the Hollywood Community Center. Shelby County Health Department’s Health Disparities team was at both locations to share information and incentives and encourage vaccination against COVID-19.

From the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, public health officials from all levels of government had grave concerns about the virus’s impact on minority communities. African Americans in Shelby County have had higher rates of infection than Whites since the beginning of the pandemic, and although the disparity has narrowed since 2020, African Americans in Shelby County are still more vulnerable to infection, hospitalization, and death than White residents. Of the current cases in Shelby County (14-Day Cases), 47.3% are among people who identify as Black or African American, while only 32.9% identify as White.

Making sure that African Americans have equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines is an important SCHD goal. That is why we launched the Sleeves Up Shelby County campaign in association with Volunteer Memphis/Leadership Memphis. The campaign has made use of minority contractors to create messages for and about Memphis’s Black and Brown communities. You may have heard Sleeves Up advertisements on radio or television or seen the Sleeves Up billboards while driving around town. That campaign continues through this year. The SCHD Health Disparities team has also played an important role in the Sleeves Up campaign. They attend events and activities all over Shelby County to promote vaccination and dispel disinformation about the COVID-19 vaccines.

Despite this intensive health education campaign, as of January 7, 2023, twice as many White Shelby County residents have received a bivalent booster dose than African American residents. Only 3.1% of the African American population has received one of the new boosters, while 6.2% of White residents have. We can do better than that as a community! The new bivalent booster is the best protection we have against the new highly contagious COVID-19 variants circulating in the community. If you have not yet received the bivalent booster, please do so as soon as possible. Do it to protect yourself and the most vulnerable among us. Also please thank the members of SCHD’s Health Disparities team who are working so hard to get accurate information about COVID-19 vaccines to the most vulnerable in our community.?