{"id":176460,"date":"2021-08-26T00:10:53","date_gmt":"2021-08-26T04:10:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=176460"},"modified":"2022-03-07T12:26:51","modified_gmt":"2022-03-07T17:26:51","slug":"students-serving-community-with-screenings-vaccinations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2021\/08\/students-serving-community-with-screenings-vaccinations\/","title":{"rendered":"Students Serving Community With Screenings, Vaccinations"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than 30 UConn School of Medicine faculty and UConn inter-professional health students engaged Hartford residents at a free health fair in Keney Park Aug. 20, in collaboration with the Urban Ecology and Wellness Center and the Keney Park Sustainability Project. There they offered health screenings for blood pressure and blood glucose, as well as COVID-19 health education and free COVID-19 prevention supplies to residents.<\/p>\n

The next morning, 20 UConn Health physicians and students went door-to-door\u00a0in medically underserved neighborhoods in Hartford\u2019s North End to address vaccine hesitancy. Visiting some of the highest-risk, lowest-vaccinated neighborhoods, they answered questions and provided vaccines in the comfort of the residents\u2019 own homes.<\/p>\n

\n

We found many cases where people didn\u2019t have transportation, were hesitating due to bad information, or had jobs and other responsibilities that interfered with getting vaccinated. We were able to offer them shots in their arms right then and there… — Dr. Bruce Gould<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Dr. Bruce E. Gould, associate dean for primary care, also is director of the Connecticut Area Health Education Center (CT AHEC) Network, and medical director for the Hartford Health Department. He and the CT AHEC Program helped recruit and coordinate volunteers and lead the service effort, which is being run again this coming weekend; additional dates are being planned through the fall.<\/p>\n

The door-to-door vaccination campaign, Gould said, was initiated by the Hartford Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), in collaboration with the UConn schools of Medicine, Nursing, and Pharmacy, AHEC\u2019s Urban Service Track, and the South Park Inn Homeless Shelter student-run clinic, as well as faculty and residents from UConn\u2019s Department of Family Medicine.<\/p>\n

\"Volunteers
Volunteers, including students and faculty from UConn Health, go door-to-door in Hartford’s North End to offer COVID-19 vaccinations and spread awareness in an underserved community. (Photo by Bruce Gould)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cPhysicians and RNs from Connecticut Children\u2019s, staff from Trinity Health and others also joined in,\u201d Gould explained. \u201cIn addition to the health fair on Friday, 20 students and faculty joined Hartford\u2019s Department of Health and Human Services workers on Saturday morning to knock on doors, provide vaccine information, and vaccinate anyone who was interested and of age.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople were surprised to see medical professionals in white coats and scrubs walking through their neighborhood on a Saturday morning, especially hours before a hurricane was due to hit. We found many cases where people didn\u2019t have transportation, were hesitating due to bad information, or had jobs and other responsibilities that interfered with getting vaccinated. We were able to offer them shots in their arms right then and there, direct them to other vaccination resources, and set up follow-up appointments for their second shots.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gould, who also serves as medical director of the Community Health Center Association of Connecticut (CHCACT), said more than 20 people were vaccinated, including one person driving by in a truck actually stopped to see what was going on and asked to be vaccinated.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe team debrief on Saturday afternoon made it clear that this truly was a useful and successful effort, and one that should be continued and expanded as we try to get a handle on vaccine misinformation and hesitancy,\u201d Gould said. \u201cWe learned a lot about \u2018boots on the ground\u2019 public health, and the lessons we gathered will be utilized in repeat performances over the coming months.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A multidisciplinary force including UConn faculty and students came together last weekend in Hartford\u2019s Keney Park and North End neighborhoods to offer free health screenings, COVID-19 information, and door-to-door vaccinations. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":150,"featured_media":176472,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1715,1877,2231,2388,2166,1868,1864,179],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2315],"class_list":["post-176460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-impact","category-nur","category-health-well-being","category-healthcare-workforce","category-sdm","category-meds","category-pharm","category-uconn-health"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-03 08:06:46","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/150"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176460"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":176516,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176460\/revisions\/176516"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/176472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176460"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=176460"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=176460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}