Championing Health Equity

This brief synthesizes key accomplishments and lessons learned based on interviews with 10 state COVID-19 health equity task forces. In response to COVID-19 health disparities, some states have established and invested in health equity task forces or workgroups. These task forces are designed to implement strategies to reduce the effects of structural racism and other structural inequities that create the systems, policies and practices that have led to COVID-19 disparities. Although some disparities have narrowed, vaccination rates among Black and Latino(a) populations remain lower than non-Hispanic white populations, and disproportionately low relative to the proportion of cases and deaths.