Journal Article

County-Level COVID-19 Vaccination Coverage and Social Vulnerability — United States, December 14, 2020–March 1, 2021

Whiteman, Ari, Musial, Trieste, Sharpe, J. Danielle, Grossman, Marissa K., Harris, LaTreace, Wang, Alice, Pun, Eugene, Hughes, Michelle M., Ritchey, Matt D., Stokley, Shannon, Deng, Li, Toblin, Robin L., Hallisey, Elaine, Gibbs-Scharf, Lynn, Murthy, Bhavini Patel, Weller, Daniel L., Reynolds, Laura, Ussery, Emily N.

2021

Overview

The U.S. COVID-19 vaccination program began in December 2020, and ensuring equitable COVID-19 vaccine access remains a national priority.* COVID-19 has disproportionately affected racial/ethnic minority groups and those who are economically and socially disadvantaged (1,2). Thus, achieving not just vaccine equality (i.e., similar allocation of vaccine supply proportional to its population across jurisdictions) but equity (i.e., preferential access and administra-tion to those who have been most affected by COVID-19 disease) is an important goal. The CDC social vulnerability index (SVI) uses 15 indicators grouped into four themes that comprise an overall SVI measure, resulting in 20 metrics, each of which has national and state-specific county rankings. The 20 metric-specific rankings were each divided into lowest to highest tertiles to categorize counties as low, moderate, or high social vulnerability counties. These tertiles were combined with vaccine administration data for 49,264,338 U.S. residents in 49 states and the District of Columbia (DC) who received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose during December 14, 2020-March 1, 2021. Nationally, for the overall SVI measure, vaccination coverage was higher (15.8%) in low social vulnerability counties than in high social vulnerability counties (13.9%), with the largest coverage disparity in the socioeconomic status theme (2.5 percentage points higher coverage in low than in high vulnerability counties). Wide state variations in equity across SVI metrics were found. Whereas in the majority of states, vaccination coverage was higher in low vulnerability counties, some states had equitable coverage at the county level. CDC, state, and local jurisdictions should continue to monitor vaccination coverage by SVI metrics to focus public health interventions to achieve equitable coverage with COVID-19 vaccine.

• Publisher: Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC),U.S. Government Printing Office,U.S. Center for Disease Control,Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• Subject: Counties / COVID-19 / COVID-19 - epidemiology / COVID-19 - prevention & control / COVID-19 vaccines / COVID-19 Vaccines - administration & dosage / Disadvantaged / Ethnic groups / Full Report / Healthcare Disparities - statistics & numerical data / Humans / Immunization / Immunization Programs / Inequality / Kindergarten students / Minority & ethnic groups / Minority groups / Program Evaluation / Public health / Residence Characteristics - statistics & numerical data / Socioeconomic Factors / United States - epidemiology / Vaccination / Vaccination Coverage - statistics & numerical data / Vaccines / Vulnerability / Vulnerable Populations