About
PANDEMIC stands for the Program to Alleviate National Disparities in Ethnic and Minority Immunizations in the Community. This 3-year-long program began in August 2021 and ended in December 2024; it was a partnership of 8 universities and a health communication organization with funding support from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The goals of the PANDEMIC project were to:
1. Teach communities how to lower their chance of getting sick or spreading infectious diseases with evidence-based, culturally and linguistically diverse, and health literate information through community health workers/ promotoras (CHW/Ps).
2. Build community trust and connect communities with vaccines and other health resources to address health disparities.
3. Work together with the community to develop culturally-relevant ways to respond to and recover from illnesses and be more resilient in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic and future pandemics.
4. Focus on communities with the greatest need for access to key health resources (such as vaccines) and factual health information.
Who did the PANDEMIC project help?
PANDEMIC’s approach to helping was to meet people where they are.
- We worked with and for people of many races and ethnicities, including people who identified as Black, Hispanic/Latino(a), Black Caribbean, Asian American, and Native American.
- We focused on areas where there were many people who were uninsured or underinsured, LGBTQ populations, people living in rural areas, non-English speakers, indigenous people, migrant farm workers and their families, people who were undocumented, ranchers and farmers, people living in or near poverty, older adults, people who were unhoused, people who were incarcerated.
- We helped people with a wide range of attitudes about vaccines, from those who were enthusiastic about vaccines, to those who were skeptical of vaccines and did not trust the health system.
What did the PANDEMIC project achieve?
Across all the research sites during the PANDEMIC project, there were:
- 14,000+ vaccinations given
- 4,000+ outreach events held
- 190,000+ community members reached
- 135,000+ people reached with education about infectious diseases
- 900+ community partners engaged
- 4,300+ Health Needs Assessments (HNAs) completed through the
- Implementation of the UF HealthStreet model, and referred:
- 2,135 people to dental resources
- 4,236 people to food resources
- 3,453 people to medical resources
- 1,146 people to other types of resources