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Relatively few blacks get H1N1 shots at L.A. County clinics

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Relatively few African Americans were vaccinated at Los Angeles County H1N1 flu clinics, despite an outcry from county leaders last fall and a million-dollar public outreach campaign.

“We did not reach the number of African Americans we would like to,” said Dr. Jonathan E. Fielding, the county’s public health director.

African Americans received 2.96% of the 200,000 vaccinations distributed countywide through Dec. 8, when the last clinic was held, although they make up 9% of the county population, according to figures released last week by the county Department of Public Health.

Whites, who compose about 29% of the county population, also received disproportionately fewer vaccines at the clinics, 19.73%. Latinos received 45% of the vaccinations, slightly less than their percentage of the population. Asians were “overrepresented,” Fielding said, receiving 27.62% of the vaccinations, although they make up about 13% of the county population.

The figures surprised Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, who had complained in November that too few African Americans were getting vaccinated.

Studies show that African Americans are more likely to lack access to healthcare and less likely to get the seasonal flu vaccine. Blacks and Latinos are among those most at risk from H1N1 flu, primarily because they suffer disproportionately from other health problems, and are four times more likely than whites to be hospitalized with H1N1 flu, according to federal studies.

On Dec. 15, supervisors approved plans to increase outreach to minorities, especially African Americans. Public health officials designed H1N1 billboards, public service announcements, and H1N1 presentations for churches, schools and community groups.

“Their campaign, from my point of view, has been botched,” Ridley-Thomas said. “They need to start from scratch.”

He said he was particularly troubled that H1N1 flu billboards he had seen in black neighborhoods did not feature African Americans.

Public health officials said it was unfair to gauge the success of their outreach based solely on vaccinations at public clinics, since 80% of H1N1 flu vaccines shipped to the county went to private health providers, who did not have to track or report vaccinations by ethnicity. “This isn’t really a snapshot of the entire effort,” said Dr. Alonzo Plough, the department’s director of emergency preparedness and response. He said the goal of the clinics was to vaccinate those most at risk for H1N1 who were uninsured or had limited access to healthcare.

“What we could not control was the response from the neighborhood,” he said. “That’s the thing we have been trying to work on understanding: You had different rates of utilization among ethnic groups.”

Fielding said the department’s response was a success: “We administered many more doses of vaccine than any other health department at a time when there was a lot of fear in the public and a lot of frustration about not being able to get it.”

molly.hennessy-fiske@latimes.com

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