Hispanic teenagers appointed as health instructors to influence the unvaccinated

Alma Gallegos is often stopped by classmates as she walks through the bustling hallways of Theodore Roosevelt High School in southeast Fresno, California. Classmates often ask the 17-year-old high school student about COVID-19 testing, vaccine safety, and the value of booster shots.

Alma has earned a reputation as a reliable source of information through her internship as a junior public health worker. She was among 35 Fresno County students recently trained to discuss how coronavirus vaccines help prevent serious illness, hospitalization and death, and to encourage relatives, peers and community members to stay up to date on their vaccinations, including boosters.

When Alma’s internship came to an end in October, she and seven of her colleagues evaluated their work on the final project. Students were proud to be able to share facts about coronavirus vaccines. Separately, Alma convinced her family to get vaccinated. She said her relatives, who mostly got their information about the coronavirus from Spanish-language news, didn’t believe in the risks until a close family friend died.

“It makes you want to know more about it,” Alma said. “My family is now all vaccinated, but we learned this the hard way.”

Community health groups in California and across the country are educating teenagers, many of whom are Hispanic or Latino, and appointing them as health educators in schools, social media, and communities where COVID-19 vaccine fears persist. According to a 2021 survey by Voto Latino and by Change Research, 51% of unvaccinated Hispanics said they did not trust the safety of vaccines. That number jumped to 67% among those whose primary language at home is Spanish. The most common reasons for not vaccinating were lack of confidence in the effectiveness of the vaccine and distrust of its manufacturers.

And vaccine hesitancy is not limited to the unvaccinated. While nearly 88% of Hispanics and Latinos have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, few report consistently getting vaccinated. The CDC estimates that less than 13% of Hispanics and Latinos have received the bivalent booster, an updated shot that public health officials recommend to protect against new variants of the virus.

Health care providers and activists believe that young people like Alma are well placed to help increase vaccination rates, especially when they help navigate the healthcare system for their Hispanic relatives.

“It makes sense to look to our youth as mentors to their peers and families,” said Dr. Thomas Magagna, assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco. “And when we talk about the Hispanic community, we need to think deeply and creatively about how to reach them.”

Some curricula use peer-to-peer models on campuses, while others teach teens to fan into their communities. The FACES for the Future Coalition, an Oakland-based community youth corps, is using programs in California, New Mexico, Colorado, and Michigan to turn students into COVID-19 vaccine educators. And the Health Information Project in Florida, which trains junior and senior high schools to educate freshmen in physical and emotional health, is including COVID-19 vaccine safety in its curriculum.

In Fresno, a program for young community health workers called “Promotoritos” adopted promoter model. promoter unlicensed healthcare professionals in Hispanic communities tasked with guiding people to medical resources and advocating for better lifestyle choices. Research shows that advertisers are trusted members of the community, which makes them unique for conducting vaccination education and outreach.

“Teens communicate differently and they get great response,” said Sandra Celedon, CEO of Fresno Building Healthy Communities, one of the organizations that helped develop the internship program for students 16 and older. “During outreach events, people naturally want to talk to the young person.”

Teenagers participating in Promotoritos are mostly Hispanic, undocumented immigrants, refugee students, or immigrant children. They receive 20 hours of training, including social media campaign strategies. For this they receive a school loan, and last year they were paid $15 an hour.

“No one ever thinks of these kids as trainees,” Celedon said. “So we wanted to create an opportunity for them because we know these are the students who would benefit the most from a paid internship.”

Last fall, Alma, a Hispanic woman, and three other junior health workers distributed Covid testing kits to local businesses in their area. Their first stop was Tiger Bite Bowls, an Asian fusion restaurant. Teenagers crowded around restaurant owner Chris Wang.and asked him if he had any questions about covid. Toward the end of the conversation, they handed him some COVID-19 testing kits.

“I think it’s good that they know and are not afraid to share their knowledge about covid,” Wang said. “I’m going to distribute these tests to everyone who needs them – clients and employees.”

There is another benefit of the program: the possibility of a career in healthcare.

California faces a widespread healthcare workforce shortage, and healthcare workers don’t always reflect the growing diversity of the state’s population. According to a California Health Foundation report, Hispanics and Latinos make up 39% of California’s population, but only 6% of the state’s doctors and 8% of the state’s medical school graduates.

Alma said she joined the program in June when she saw a flyer in the school psychologist’s office. She said it was her way of helping other families not to lose a loved one.

Now she wants to become a radiologist.

“At my age,” Alma said, “this is the perfect way to get involved.”

This story was produced by KHN, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Foundation.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national news service that produces in-depth journalism on health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three main operating programs of the KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is a charitable non-profit organization providing health information to the nation.

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