California health officials have made clear they want equity and transparency to be among the main priorities in deciding how to allocate the first scarce supplies of a vaccine. For example, in divvying up the first doses for health care workers, the state is prioritizing hospitals located in low-income areas before those in wealthy areas.
"We will be very aggressive in making sure that those with means, those with influence, are not crowding out those that are most deserving of the vaccines," Gov. Gavin Newsom said recently at a press conference.
Newsom is referring to current inequities of money, power and access — but state officials also seem willing and even eager to also take into consideration historic injustices when deciding vaccine allocation. The state asked more than 70 organizations to join the Community Vaccine Advisory Committee to help develop an equitable vaccine distribution plan, including the Sacramento-based policy advocacy organization Hedrick runs, theCalifornia Consortium for Urban Indian Health.
Rather than defining equity as everyone having a "fair opportunity to attain their full potential," as the World Health Organization does, Burke Harris instead proposed adopting a definition from the U.S.Office of Minority Health, which says achieving health equity requires "efforts to address avoidable inequalities and historical and contemporary injustices."
"We really wanted to have that included," Burke Harris said.
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