Mass General and Brigham and Women’s Hospital Supporting Vulnerable Communities

In Boston and the Greater Boston area, reports show that Latino, African American and vulnerable communities have been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. “Hot spot” locations include Chelsea, Revere, Brockton, Hyde Park, Mattapan and East Boston. To help address this issue Partners has launched a Community Health COVID-19 strategy. The main goals of this strategy include:

• Expanding testing to better identify COVID-19 positive individuals in these communities
• Mitigating the spread of COVID-19 with door-to-door distribution of multilingual information and “care kits” with masks and other key items
• Identifying housing and support mechanisms for those individuals who are COVID-19 positive but cannot safely isolate at home without the risk of spread
• Creating routine channels of communication with community members, using care managers and community health workers, to focus on COVID-19 positive individuals and those at-risk to assess ability to isolate, symptoms and the need for additional service

Partners will be working with city and town authorities and community-based organizations to carry out these activities across the communities. Learn more about Brigham and Women’s mobile testing on CBS Boston.