Geographic disparities in COVID-19 vaccination in Chicago
William F. Parker, MD, MS1
Data Sources
Data from the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH)
Last updated at Tuesday, March 16 at 01:17 PM CST.
Code is available here.
The current disparity
COVID mortality and vaccination in Chicago
Current distribution of mortality and vaccination in Chicago. Mortality rates are cumulative COVID-19 deaths to date per 100,000 residents of the zip code. Vaccination rates are percentage of population in the zip code receiving the first dose.
Correlation between zip code mortality and vaccination rate
The correlation between zip code morality and 1st-dose vaccination coverage is -0.27. Ideally this correlation would be strongly positive.
Trends in vaccination by zip code mortality
The zip codes in the bottom 40% of death rates remain the most vaccinated. The more impacted zip codes have not caught up during Phase 1B, suggesting the disparity is not simply a function of healthcare worker priority for phase 1A.
Protect Chicago Plus
Targeted neighborhoods are appropriate
Protect Chicago Plus Neighborhoods have some of the highest COVID mortality death rates to date in the city.
Instant impact in Neighborhoods with vaccine events
Protect Chicago Plus vaccine events to date have served residents in Belmont Cragin, Montclare, Gage Park, Chicago Lawn, North and South Lawndale (Little Village), and Archer Heights.
The city and CPDH are demonstrating how this is a problem of access, not hesitancy.
Long way to go in targeted communities overall
From the ethical perspective of maximizing benefits (saving lives), it is inefficent to allocate vaccine to areas of the city that are lower risk from COVID-19. Therefore there is no tension between efficiency and equity here in the ethical analysis. For more details, check out Parker WF, Persad G, Peek ME. Four Recommendations To Efficiently And Equitably Accelerate The COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout. Health Affairs Blog