KANSAS CITY, Mo. — COVID-19 is hitting the Latino community harder than others around the nation and here in Kansas City.
A study by COVID Collabrative surveyed 258 Latino Americans in September.
The study found 73% percent of the people who responded to the survey knew someone who had been diagnosed with the virus.
It also found 52% of the people who participated in the survey also knew someone who died due to COVID-19 complications.
The Mattie Rhodes Art Center in Kansas City, Missouri is working to demystify the information about the pandemic and the coming vaccine in the Latino community.
"There's a lot of rumors out there," Angela Brunner with the Mattie Rhodes Art Center said. "There's a ton of different stories about 'my friend's families' and this and that, so we want to make sure people have access to correct information in the language they speak."
Brunner said it's common for Latinos to trust their families to get the latest information, but sometimes rumors do more harm than good.
"Rather than putting something out on social media or the website, it's really person-to-person. Our staff really build relationships with our participants over months or years, even," Brunner said.
As the United States gets closer to getting people vaccinated, the survey found only 34% of the Latino Americans surveyed trusted a COVID-19 vaccine's safety.
Alex Kimball Williams is the health equity planner at Lawrence Douglas County Public Health.
"People have past experiences in doctors' offices where maybe they were being discriminated, maybe they felt they weren't being prioritized," Williams said.
Williams said it's a double-edged sword because from an equality standpoint, they'd want to vaccinate vulnerable populations first.
However, many people don't want to feel like guinea pigs.
"But if you don't focus on them first, then it's like you're just leaving them to fend for themselves," Kimball Williams said. "And if you do something that's a blanket, a whole community solution, then you're not equitably prioritizing those people still."
Both Kimball Williams and Brunner say the best thing they can do is continue those person-to-person connections to hand out accurate information from public health partners.
"I'm really hopeful our participants take advantage and protect themselves," Brunner said.
