Language Support

Many refugee, immigrant, and migrant (RIM) community members experience significant cultural, linguistic, and logistical barriers to accessing health information and healthcare, including accurate information about COVID-19, COVID-19 vaccines, and vaccination opportunities. 

Many people from refugee, immigrant, and migrant (RIM) communities experience significant logistical barriers to COVID-19 vaccination. Some vaccine campaigns rely on internet-based registration and utilize locations that accommodate large numbers of people for vaccine administration. This strategy may be ineffective for many RIM communities due to linguistic limitations, unreliable internet access and overall internet navigation barriers. Community members may not have reliable internet access or be familiar with the internet.

COVID-19 vaccines are becoming more widely available in the United States. As vaccine allocation includes a larger proportion of the population, understanding and overcoming challenges to vaccination experienced by different communities is essential to ensuring equitable vaccine implementation.

Some health departments experience challenges reaching some refugee, immigrant, and migrant (RIM) communities during case investigation and contact tracing (CICT) due to limited numbers of professional interpreters or bilingual CICT staff.