Obesity Health Disparities Research Center (OHDRC) - COVID-19 Testing Model among Vulnerable Populations: From Community Engagement to Follow-Up

The COVID-19 pandemic has created unique challenges for vulnerable populations. As part of the mission ofthe OHDRC, we have maintained continuous community engagement and partnerships aimed at finding waysto reduce the impact of obesity and related chronic diseases. With the advent of COVID-19, we were quicklyable to leverage these long-standing and trusting relationships to learn how COVID-19 was perceived by theresidents of our partnering vulnerable communities. Through ongoing community dialogue, we know that thereare substantial differences in how residents in our partner communities understand and act upon COVID-19guidance, perhaps contributing to the alarming disparities in COVID-19 outcomes. Overall, residents feel thatCOVID-19 is making marginalized communities even more marginalized. In this environment, it is vital that wefind ways to improve COVID-19 testing and follow-up care through collaboration with community partners.The overall goal of this emergency revision to the OHDRC, COVID-19 Testing Model among VulnerablePopulations: From Community Engagement to Follow-Up, is to implement and evaluate the impact of a three-component mobile community-based testing model in improving the access, acceptance, uptake, andappropriate follow-up. Our unique model combines 1) robust pre-testing community engagement to improvereach and acceptability of COVID-19 testing; 2) targeted mobile testing located in underserved neighborhoodsto increase access and uptake; and 3) culturally appropriate post-testing participant navigation and follow-upservices to ensure better impact and health outcomes. Strong community partnerships help ensure theacceptability and sustainability of this effort.The proposed model is guided by the Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) framework andintegrates a Social Determinants of Health (SDH) approach throughout all aims to strengthen communityengagement, identify areas in greatest need for testing, and enhance navigation services to address unmethealthcare follow-up and social needs. We will compare the effectiveness of our neighborhood mobile testingmodel to the traditional health systems-based fixed testing model. Study findings will provide evidence thatcan help improve testing rates and follow-up among vulnerable populations and address stark disparities inCOVID-19 outcomes. The proposed work builds upon an already active demonstration pilot testing project thatprovided testing to vulnerable African American and Hispanic residents of Jefferson County, Alabama.