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‘Gut-wrenching’ disparity seen in Portland area’s disproportionately wealthy, white vaccine rollout

By Rob Davis, oregonlive.com
Published: April 16, 2021, 7:58am

People living in Portland’s lower-income, more racially diverse neighborhoods hardest hit by COVID-19 have gotten far fewer vaccines than people living in whiter, wealthier neighborhoods, an analysis by The Oregonian/OregonLive has found, the latest evidence that the state is failing to fulfill its promise of racial equity in its vaccine rollout.

Despite repeated pledges from Gov. Kate Brown and other state health leaders that Oregon would prioritize vaccines for communities of color, the analysis uncovered striking geographic inequities in who is being inoculated.

ZIP code-level data released this week by the Oregon Health Authority in response to a newsroom records request reveals not only stark socioeconomic and demographic disparities, but also that the neighborhoods most susceptible to coronavirus infections are those most lacking in vaccinations to prevent severe illness and death.

One Lake Oswego ZIP code, which has Oregon’s highest household income among populous geographies, also has the highest vaccination rate. Some 58% of people in the 97034 ZIP code had been partially or fully vaccinated, far outpacing the state’s 32.6% average as of last Friday.

But in east Portland and Gresham’s 97233 ZIP code — the metropolitan community hardest hit by the virus — just 22% of residents in the Rockwood area had gotten vaccinated.

Click here to see an interactive map of COVID-19 vaccinations by ZIP code

Numerous factors affect vaccine uptake, including the percentage of those eligible based on age or occupation. The vaccine rollout has prioritized older Oregonians, and Lake Oswego’s population is older than average while Rockwood’s is younger than average.

But the Lake Oswego ZIP code stands out for other reasons: It is whiter than average, and it has a below-average incidence of COVID-19, with 28 cases per 1,000 residents.

Rockwood, by contrast, is one of the lowest-income areas in the metropolitan region and is more racially diverse. It has the highest rate of cases locally, at 82 per 1,000 residents.

Throughout the metro area, communities where the virus has spread the most have some of the lowest rates of vaccination, the analysis found. And wealthier communities with fewer infections now have some of the highest inoculation rates.

It’s not just Lake Oswego. The newsroom analysis shows the Portland metro’s wealthiest areas — including West Linn, the West Hills near Washington Park and the Beaverton-area suburbs north of U.S. 26 — have higher-than-average vaccination rates.

Kim Toevs, communicable disease director for the Multnomah County Health Department, said the state’s system, with a reliance on a mass vaccine clinic at the Oregon Convention Center, “wasn’t set up from the beginning with a fundamental equity approach.”

“Putting all of our resources into one large vaccine clinic only was probably not the best strategy for an equity focus,” Toevs said. “The thing about the structural racism we’ve had in this system is that unless you carefully question it and dismantle it at every point, it just rebuilds itself even with progressively minded people. It takes more than good intention, it takes a huge amount of work.”

Several Latinx community leaders said during a Thursday press conference that they wanted to see more transparent data provided by the Oregon Health Authority. It’s unclear how long the agency has known that its vaccine rollout was not happening equitably in the four months since healthcare workers began receiving shots.

Asked how long the agency had the neighborhood-level vaccination data released to the newsroom, an authority spokesman, Rudy Owens, did not answer the question. Instead he told a reporter the date the authority released the figures to the newsroom: Wednesday.

The health authority, which did not grant an interview request, said in a written statement that many factors affect vaccine uptake, including access, eligibility age, personal decisions, unexpected weather events and the pause in the Johnson &amp; Johnson vaccine — although this week’s decision to halt the one-dose vaccine is not reflected in the numbers shared with the newsroom.

Data provided by the health authority appears to be current through April 9. The newsroom analyzed vaccinations for the tri-county metro area for ZIP codes with at least 10,000 residents, capturing 96% of the population across Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas counties.

Owens, the spokesman, said the agency is working closely with community organizations, health centers and public health authorities “to provide trusted, culturally appropriate information, outreach and vaccine events in local communities hosted by trusted community leaders.”

Sabrina Wilson is executive director of the Rosewood Initiative, a nonprofit community group that serves the east Portland neighborhood around the 97233 ZIP code and that is helping to administer vaccines to 900 people. She said it’s essential to bring vaccinations to the neighborhoods that need them. Relying on mass vaccination sites, like the one at the Oregon Convention Center, makes access a challenge for people who live in the area and often rely on public transportation.

Told about the disparity in vaccination between her area’s inoculations and Lake Oswego, Wilson sighed.

“That’s pretty shocking to me,” she said. “Those numbers are gut-wrenching a little bit, because folks out here are in need.”

Brown has emphasized the importance of reaching underserved communities with the vaccine during tours of community vaccination clinics and other events, saying she wants Oregonians to be inoculated as quickly as possible while maintaining a focus on the people most vulnerable and hardest hit by COVID-19. As of Thursday, more than 1.5 million Oregonians had been partially or fully vaccinated.

Asked whether the governor was concerned about the disparities identified in the newsroom’s analysis, Brown’s spokesman, Charles Boyle, said in a statement Oregon needed “to do more to help these communities –– it is not enough until we reach every Oregonian with access to a vaccine and information.”

The state will continue to expand targeted vaccination efforts, Boyle said, including mobile vaccine clinics and neighborhood-based clinics.

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