MINNEAPOLIS — Flu season hit Children's Minnesota hard last winter, so a team of people took a hard look at the numbers to come up with a more pro-active approach this fall.
"We looked at the data from the respiratory surge that we experienced last winter, when there was a severe shortage of pediatric beds," said Lauren Gilchrist, Senior Director of the Collective for Community Health at Children's Minnesota. "We looked at those hospitalized cases and which zip codes they were from."
It didn't take long for a pattern to emerge. According to Children's Minnesota, of the 6,000 kids admitted for the flu in its Twin Cities hospitals, a disproportionate came from just a few neighborhoods. Another analysis found that 75% of Black/African American patients and approximately 71% of Hispanic/Latino patients admitted with the flu were not vaccinated prior to admission.
To combat that this season, Children's Minnesota began organizing mobile flu shot clinics with the United Health Foundation.
"We want to be able to prevent illness where we can," said Dr. Lisa Saul, with the United Health Foundation. "We want to be able to promote the health of communities where we can, and this is a really important way to do that."
The foundation has dedicated $3 million over the next three years to keep the flu shot outreach rolling, as well as to help address disparities in other childhood vaccinations, asthma treatment and mental health care.
And the targeted effort goes beyond zip codes alone.
"We looked at who are the schools, who are the trusted community partners in those zip codes," Gilchrist said. "And we began conversations about how could we partner to try to increase the rate of vaccination in those specific areas."
This week, that meant partnering with Nellie Stone Johnson Community School in north Minneapolis, to bring a mobile flu shot clinic to the school's annual Fall Festival.
"I was very excited just to be able to offer the families in the community the opportunity to get the flu shot," said Nyrise Johnson, the school's family liaison. "The response from families was amazing, just considering that I didn't know that many families would be interested."
And they hope that the activity inside the mobile clinic, leads to less flu activity in the season to come.
"It means a lot to me," Johnson said. "This is my community, I was born and raised in this community and I do know that there is a need for things like this to be happening closer to home."
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