University of Alabama to help in roll out of coronavirus vaccinations

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) - The University of Alabama will play a big role in the national effort to ensure the coronavirus vaccine roll out goes smoothly.

The University will participate in the effort to ensure that communities of color are not left out when it comes to COVID19 vaccinations. Much of that effort will focus on several communities in the Alabama Black Belt and West Alabama.

Five faculty members from UA are part of a research team aimed at examining barriers that make it harder for people in under served communities to get help. They’ll work with people in those communities to develop strategies for a COVID vaccine delivery system. Work has already started into how some of those places have been impacted by the pandemic.

“Hopefully we can support medicine and public health and their efforts to get this vaccine to as many people as possible so that we can achieve high levels of immunity in this population and put this pandemic to bed,” Dr. Stephanie McClure, an anthropologist at the University of Alabama explained.

The effort will focus on six West Alabama counties including Tuscaloosa, Pickens, Greene, Bibb Hale and Perry counties. The University’s research team will be reaching out to residents in January and February in hopes they’ll have strategies ready to use by Spring of 2021, when people in the general public could get vaccinated.