Community Engagement

COVID-19 has disproportionately affected refugee, immigrant, and migrant (RIM) communities and highlighted health inequities that often stem from a lack of trust and understanding between RIM communities and public health or healthcare agencies. Community health boards can serve as an effective strategy to build capacity within a community as well as provide community members with a trusted resource for health information and guidance.

Building vaccine confidence takes time and trust. Client-facing staff and others working directly with community members seeking to dispel fear, misinformation, and disinformation will usually need to engage and explore people's hesitancy before sharing accurate information. One helpful way to do this is using some of the techniques found in Motivational Interviewing.

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to have a disproportionate impact on refugee, immigrant, and migrant (RIM) communities. To slow the spread of COVID-19 in RIM communities, health departments and community-based organizations (CBOs) are developing innovative approaches that encourage youth to wear a mask and get vaccinated not only for themselves, but also for others.

Many refugee, immigrant, and migrant (RIM) community members experience significant barriers to getting accurate information about the COVID-19 vaccine, as well as the vaccine itself. At clinics and mass vaccination events, the challenge of navigating a large and confusing site with unfamiliar staff can be intimidating.

Effective community-led COVID-19 responses are built on approaches that give space for communities to identify problems, explore solutions, and draw up action plans to address community needs. Yet, traditional research methods do not commonly reflect community voices, and perspectives. Often community members are not meaningfully engaged in the research process.

Youth and young adults continue to have low COVID-19 vaccination rates across the US. Engaging youth is vital in the next stage of vaccine promotion and for reaching herd immunity.

Social media is a primary source of information for much of the US public, especially youth and young adults. This includes people in refugee, immigrant and migrant (RIM) communities who may not utilize traditional media sources that are not published in their language.

Immunization rates are lower among refugee, immigrant, and migrant (RIM) communities due to factors that include limited culturally and linguistically appropriate information, knowledge and beliefs about a disease and vaccine, and challenges accessing healthcare (related to cost, transportation, medical system complexity/unfamiliarity, lack of welcoming environment, etc.). Vaccine hesitancy is a significant hurdle to ending the COVID-19 pandemic and getting back to

In the COVID-19 response, partnerships are essential to reaching refugee, immigrant, and migrant (RIM) communities, maximizing resources, reducing duplicating efforts, and improving the delivery of services and resources. The requirement in most of the U.S., that a person must visit a medical facility to receive medical services, is a large barrier for many individuals and communities, particularly for preventive health care such as immunizations.

As COVID-19 continues to disproportionately impact refugee, immigrant, and migrant (RIM) communities, it is vital that linguistically and culturally appropriate messaging created by and from the community is accessible. Recognizing the need to reach individuals with real-time, tailored messaging about COVID-19, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Boise is creating hyperlocal, rapidly produced videos.

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.

COVID-19 continues to have a disproportionate impact on refugee, immigrant, and migrant (RIM) communities. While health providers may be keen to develop initiatives to reach these communities, doing so without engagement of the communities may result in efforts that are ineffective or even harmful. One-off attempts at community engagement (e.g.

Effective COVID-19 response among refugee, immigrant, and migrant (RIM) populations requires relationships with communities. Each community’s success in achieving measurable and timely health outcomes is oftentimes based on the social determinants of health of the particular community. Ensuring health equity within RIM communities builds healthier and more resilient communities; this can be a challenge, particularly for certain communities disproportionately affected by COVID-19. 

Many community members have questions regarding COVID-19 vaccines. In particular, organizations that work in the community and often serve as information hubs have a specific need to ensure that their staff have up-to-date information about COVID-19 vaccines that they feel comfortable sharing. The program creates virtual platforms for community engagement and information sharing as well as a resource hub program that addresses information gaps. 

In the COVID-19 response, health departments across the country are challenged with knowing how to reach refugee, immigrant, and migrant (RIM) communities and assess their specific needs. There may be difficulty in beginning to build relationships with a community. Health departments must build trust with RIM communities to ensure useful work can be accomplished. Identifying community partners is the first step to establish connections and create rapport within the RIM community.

To reach communities that are most impacted by inequities during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is essential to integrate considerations for these communities of focus into all aspects of the response efforts. When equity work is sequestered to one area of the response, there are often siloes in the work and equity considerations can become reactive instead of proactive.

In the COVID-19 pandemic, additional mental wellness challenges are being placed on refugee, immigrant, and migrant (RIM) community members due to increased stigma, isolation, financial stressors, and existing traumas from resettlement. Ensuring equitable barrier-free access to mental health support and resources is especially critical for RIM communities to mitigate the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on this population and prevent further trauma.

Effective COVID-19 response among refugee, immigrant, and migrant (RIM) populations requires relationships with communities. There may be some challenges in figuring out where to start when building or enhancing relationships with communities. One consideration for health departments includes engaging with the consulates or population-specific business organizations of RIM communities in your area.

In coordinating an effective COVID-19 response, partnerships with existing community groups are essential for reaching underserved communities and improving the delivery of services, resources, and information. Youth groups can be especially effective outreach partners, helping to provide door-to-door information, distributing resources and empowering the youth in the community to be active participants in emergency health response.

Many community members turn to local, trusted sources to get information about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines. For refugee, immigrant, and migrant (RIM) communities, local media outlets that are linguistically and culturally concordant are essential conduits for the most up-to-date COVID-19 information and guidance.

Effective COVID-19 response among refugee, immigrant, and migrant (RIM) communities requires relationships with communities. Lack of information in the community can foster distrust with the health department, lead to hesitancy to cooperate with case investigators and contact tracers, and potentially worsen health outcomes. There may be some difficulty in knowing where to start when building or strengthening relationships with a community.

The availability of accurate COVID-19 information that is culturally- and linguistically-appropriate is essential to keeping communities safe. Likewise, it is also important to provide information via channels that community members actively use and trust.  

In the COVID-19 response, partnerships are essential to reach underserved communities, maximize resources, reduce duplication of efforts, and improve the delivery of culturally- and linguistically-appropriate services and resources. Community Health Workers (CHWs), community-based organizations (CBOs), and local health departments (LHDs) share goals to improve community health, particularly among disproportionately impacted populations.

The availability of accurate COVID-19 information that is culturally and linguistically appropriate is essential to keeping communities safe. However, there are currently many communication challenges for refugee, immigrant, and migrant (RIM) communities. Language barriers, time restraints, and having patients isolated from their families has resulted in a communication gap between patients, families, and health providers.

In the COVID-19 response, partnerships are essential to reach underserved communities, maximize resources, reduce duplicating efforts, and improve the delivery of services and resources. Federally-Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) and local health departments (LHDs) share goals to improve community health, particularly among disproportionately impacted populations. Collaboration allows limited federal, state, and local resources to be targeted and allocated to areas that need the resources most.

In the COVID-19 public health response, some sites report low attempts to follow-up and low response rates within refugee, immigrant, and migrant (RIM) communities. This leads to inaccurate data for case investigators and contact tracers. Likewise, it is also essential to provide information and services via channels that community members actively use and trust.

Immunization rates are lower among refugee, immigrant and migrant (RIM) communities due to factors which include cultural and linguistic diversity, knowledge and beliefs about a disease and vaccine, and challenges accessing healthcare (related to cost, transportation, medical system complexity/unfamiliarity, lack of welcoming environment, etc.). This challenge is expected to persist as the COVID-19 vaccine becomes increasingly available.

State and local health departments (SLHD) may work with community-based organizations (CBOs), resettlement agencies, and faith-based organizations to reach refugee, immigrant, and migrant (RIM) communities. However, in order to more effectively address the health needs of incoming refugee arrivals, SLHD should partner with State Refugee Health Coordinators to better assess refugee health needs as part of a comprehensive and effective COVID-19 public health response. 

The availability of accurate COVID-19 information that is culturally and linguistically relevant is essential to keeping communities safe. Messages change rapidly and some health departments may face challenges with developing health messaging that reaches all communities, particularly refugees, immigrants, and migrants (RIM). 

It is essential to draw on community strengths and trusted community networks to respond effectively to COVID-19 and to longstanding health inequities made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic.

During and beyond the pandemic, providing accurate COVID-19 information, support, and resources that are culturally and linguistically appropriate and specific to RIM communities remains essential to keeping communities safe.

COVID-19 continues to impact and further disenfranchise many communities, including immigrants, migrants, the elderly, and others. The needs of these communities are complex and solutions require many stakeholders and partners. 

Reaching populations that are most impacted by COVID-19 with resources and education is critical, particularly for refugees, immigrants, and migrants (RIM), communities of color, American Indian communities, and LGBTQ+ communities. Trusted messengers and tailored outreach are especially essential to a successful partnership with these communities due to distrust of government, ongoing and historical trauma, and linguistic needs.

Health departments are working quickly to implement plans for COVID-19 vaccine roll-out. As news and messaging around COVID-19 vaccines unfolds rapidly, some communities may have questions and concerns about what to expect. 

The availability of accurate COVID-19 and other public health related information that is culturally and linguistically relevant is essential to keeping communities safe. Messages change rapidly, and some health departments may face challenges with developing health messaging that reaches all communities, particularly refugees, immigrants, and migrants.

The availability of accurate COVID-19 information that is culturally- and linguistically-appropriate is essential to keeping communities safe. Likewise, it is also important to provide information via channels that community members actively use and trust.  

In the COVID-19 response, some sites are reporting challenges in reaching large numbers of refugee, immigrant, and migrant (RIM) community members to disseminate consistent health messaging and awareness of existing services.