The Santa Barbara County Public Health Department launched its first trilingual, tri-cultural COVID-19 vaccine pilot program on Feb. 28, providing vaccinations to nearly 500 farmworkers in Santa Maria.
Public Health Department spokesperson Jackie Ruiz told the Sun that the initial goals of the pilot program are to work through cultural and linguistic barriers and respond to the unique needs of the communities represented—which include Spanish and Mixteco speakers.
During the Feb. 2 Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors meeting, Public Health Director Dr. Van Do-Reynoso said one of the difficulties identified at the event was enrolling the farmworkers for vaccine appointments through PrepMod, California’s registration system. The enrollment process requires an email address to confirm an appointment, and many of the participants didn’t have an email address.
“It was amazing to have community partners who could register and create email accounts within their organization to receive the confirmation as well as call their community members as reminders [of their appointment],” Do-Reynoso said.
The county partnered with Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy (CAUSE), Mixteco Indigena Community Organizing Project (MICOP), Herencia Indígena, Agricultural Commission, and the Grower-Shipper Association of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties, which were instrumental in identifying the barriers these community members face when accessing COVID-19 vaccines.
The vaccination site at the Santa Maria Health Care Center was staffed by mostly bilingual English and Spanish speakers. Herencia Indígena volunteered five Mixteco interpreters for the event. The clinic had 30 staff members, which Do-Reynoso described as a “bare-bones” crew. However, staffing the clinic with a bilingual, bicultural staff made the entire vaccination process effective, Do-Reynoso told supervisors.
“So rather than waiting and grabbing one or two bilingual staff members who can run over, everyone was in that space where we could do communication in real time in the preferred language,” she said. “We learned that we can do a 500 clinic with very minimal staff who are bilingual.”
Farmworkers received a vaccine and a bag with information on legal, medical, and wellness support services offered by the county and partnering organizations. The Santa Barbara County Agricultural Commissioner donated masks, gloves, and a family-sized bottle of hand sanitizer for the bags.
“Everything was conducted really in a bilingual, trilingual setting, and I walked through the lines and got an opportunity to speak with many of the community members, and the overall sense was really happiness and excitement and relief at being able to receive the vaccination in a very safe and a very culturally and linguistically appropriate manner. It was a roaring success from my standpoint and what I’m hearing from community members as well as community partners,” Do-Reynoso said.
Ruiz said the pilot program will inform the county and its partners on how to better manage county clinics using an equity lens.
“We want to ensure all community members are able to get vaccinated without barriers,” she said.
This article appears in Mar 4-11, 2021.