//Black and Latino communities are being left behind in the vaccine rollout

Black and Latino communities are being left behind in the vaccine rollout

In February, volunteers set up 18 vaccinations stations at Steinmetz College Prep in the majority-Hispanic Belmont Cragin neighborhood of Chicago. | Courtesy of Ali Khan

Achieving equity will take a combination of data, an understanding of hesitancy, and targeted community planning.

Over Valentine’s weekend, the halls of Steinmetz College Prep were teeming with activity. The high school, located on the Northwest Side of Chicago in Belmont Cragin, a largely Latino neighborhood, had become the site where the city had launched an initiative like few in the country: Here, more than five dozen volunteers — many of them members of local community-based organizations, major health networks, and small providers — filed into the building each morning to execute an equitable vaccine rollout.

Local organizations had spent weeks planning and reaching out to members to sign up for their first shot. The