Overview
From 2021 to June 2025, the Vaccine Equity Initiative worked with the populations and communities hardest hit by COVID-19 to increase awareness and acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccine, access to vaccination locations, and vaccine administration rates. This approach was driven by community needs, centered on equity, and informed by data.
Specifically, the Vaccine Equity Initiative worked to:
Increase trust in the vaccine’s safety and efficacy, acknowledging that in many communities of color, mistrust and hesitancy can stem from a history of medical mistreatment.
Identify and reduce barriers for accessing the vaccine.
Increase vaccine access for priority populations, through existing vaccination locations and mobile vaccination options.
Through the Vaccine Equity Initiative (VEI), DPH collaborated with municipalities and with trusted local organizations to build vaccine confidence and increase access to vaccinations. Communications campaigns and community-level data supported the effort.
Community partners were essential to the success of the initiative. Through VEI, DPH awarded well over $60 million to about 200 community organizations, including community- and faith-based organizations, Tribal and Indigenous People-serving organizations, community health centers, and other community-based healthcare organizations.
Strategies
The COVID-19 Vaccine Equity Plan outlines the multi-faceted, community-centered approach of the Vaccine Equity Initiative. Subsequent reports on the plan provide data and information about specific strategies. Learn more from the COVID-19 Vaccine Equity Plan and reports.
Community highlights show how VEI’s strategies were put into action in communities. They cover a wide range of activities that changed as community needs evolved during the pandemic.
Accomplishments
Through the work of the Vaccine Equity Initiative:
- Vaccination rates in VEI communities increased about 500% in the initiative’s first year.
- By February 2023, nearly 1.9 million residents in VEI communities had been vaccinated with a first dose. This closed a 6 percentage point gap in vaccination rates between the VEI and non-VEI communities in March of 2021 by half to a 3 percentage point gap in February 2023.
- As vaccines became available to most age groups at the height of the pandemic, VEI communities rapidly increased the fully vaccinated rates in their BIPOC communities by 32 percentage points from May 2021 through December 2022, an increase of 216%.
- Nearly 80,000 doses were administered through VEI’s Get Boosted effort that ran from October 2022 through March 2023. Get Boosted clinics were designed to increase vaccine access and vaccination rates for Massachusetts residents in the 20 municipalities and 14 rural areas prioritized as part of the Vaccine Equity Initiative, and 10 additional municipalities with the lowest booster rates and highest BIPOC populations.
Priority populations
The initiative focused on the following populations, which were disproportionately impacted by COVID-19:
- Black, Indigenous, People of Color, Latinx individuals
- Individuals who do not speak English, or who prefer to speak in another language
- Individuals who do not have access to transportation, either personal or public, or who face barriers getting to a vaccination location
- Individuals who do not feel comfortable receiving the vaccine in a traditional healthcare setting
- Individuals with disabilities and those who have access and functional needs
- Individuals experiencing homelessness
- Individuals with mental illness and/or residents with substance use disorder
- Individuals who identify as LGBTQ+
This list of priority populations was determined by looking at individuals who have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, informed by case data and the COVID-19 Community Impact Survey, which DPH conducted in the fall of 2020.