The COVID pandemic turned out to be a heavy burden for many countries, including the USA. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2021), almost 31 million people were affected, and over 550,000 died due to the associated complications. The US healthcare system could not provide adequate care to all people in need. Underprivileged groups became the most vulnerable population due to diverse aspects, including the lack of access to care, the peculiarities of living standards, the level of education are among others.
Although scientists managed to develop quite an effective intervention to address the problem within only a year and a half after the outbreak of the disease, many people have concerns regarding the vaccination. The issues related to vaccination are linked to the availability of medication and people’s willingness to be vaccinated (Loomba et al., 2021). It has been acknowledged that people are misguided by data available from different resources, including major social media. As for COVID vaccines, patients are reluctant to be vaccinated due to their fears regarding potential side effects and long-term health outcomes. This community is also affected by misinformation, and many people refuse to receive vaccines.
Nurses play a central role in the popularization of vaccination and educating people on vaccines. These healthcare professionals are in close contact with patients and their families, which enables them to advocate for vaccination (Adams & Hilfinger Messias, 2019). These healthcare professionals can discuss the benefits of vaccination and the need to receive COVID shots, which is specifically important for the most vulnerable groups. In this community, nurses should pay specific attention to communicating with ethnic minorities and low-income families. Nurses should address the existing myths and inaccurate information to make people willing to be vaccinated and encourage others to do so as well.
References
Adams, S. A., & Hilfinger Messias, D. K. (2019). Epidemiology. In M. Stanhope & J. Lancaster (Eds.), Public health nursing e-book: Population-centered health care in the community (pp. 269-298). Elsevier Health Sciences.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2021). United States COVID-19 cases and deaths by state. Web.
Loomba, S., de Figueiredo, A., Piatek, S. J., de Graaf, K., & Larson, H. J. (2021). Measuring the impact of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation on vaccination intent in the UK and USA. Nature Human Behaviour, 5(3), 337-348. Web.