Legacy Health and three Clark County community organizations have teamed up to deliver free testing for low-income and marginalized communities on Saturday.
The Vancouver NAACP, Fourth Plain Forward and Southwest Washington League of United Latin American Citizens Council 47013 have organized the event along with Legacy, hoping to administer up to 150 tests on Saturday.
Sydney Johnson, the district program coordinator for the community-based nonprofit Fourth Plain Forward, said the organized testing is an important effort aimed at tackling COVID-19 testing barriers that exist for people of color and low-income communities.
In general, COVID-19 testing is more available in white neighborhoods across the U.S. It’s also easier to get and pay for a test for those who have health insurance, transportation options and a work environment that makes it easier to leave work.
Testing barriers have contributed to COVID-19 health disparities that disproportionately impact people of color. Nationwide, Black people are dying at 2.3 times the rate of white people, according to the COVID-19 Tracking Project.
Latino people are dying at 1.5 times the rate of white people, and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander people are dying at 1.2 times the rate of white people from the virus.
In Clark County, Latino people have made up close to 30 percent of cases, where there is a known race or ethnicity. That’s despite the fact that the county’s Latino population is around 10 percent.
Johnson said that language barriers, transportation barriers, work barriers and health care barriers have all played a role in that statistic.
Johnson said that many residents Fourth Plain Forward works with needed help translating information earlier in the pandemic, when it came to state guidelines, COVID-19 symptoms or health care options.
Now it can be difficult for residents to leave work to get tested, to afford testing or have transportation to get to testing.
“There is a balancing act for people,” she said.
Dr. Nick Kashey, interim clinical vice president of population health with Legacy Health, said he hopes the event will break down some barriers. Legacy held a similar event in Multnomah County recently.
Kashey mentioned the three local organizations are key to connecting with communities in need of testing.
“We are letting the community organizations do the outreach because they have trusted relationships with the community,” Kashey said.
Legacy has worked on other similar health care disparity initiatives in the past, Kashey said, but he’s hopeful that these testing events can lead to more action around racial health disparities in the future.
“This has been an opportunity to strengthen relationships and work more intentionally,” he said.
