Addressing the Threat of COVID-19 in Black Communities

Choose Healthy Life

Predominantly Black and Hispanic lower-income communities are experiencing some of the most devastating impacts of the pandemic. Many in these communities have struggled to gain access to and pay for healthcare resources and testing, resulting in higher rates of COVID-19 spread, positivity, and death. Upon the launch of Q4HE, these vulnerable communities were the first priority.

Beyond providing equitable access to testing and diagnostics, Quest leadership understood the need to pair Quest services with educational resources. Traditionally, there has been a level of distrust of the healthcare system within Black communities. To overcome this obstacle, Q4HE developed partnerships with highly trusted organizations and institutions, including Choose Healthy Life (CHL), a Black-led national nonprofit originally formed to address the impact of AIDS on Black communities. With Q4HE’s support, CHL has been able to evolve their proven model to address the COVID-19 pandemic.

Q4HE supported CHL’s efforts to engage one of the most trusted institutions within the Black community: the church. CHL partnered with 50 prominent Black reverends and their churches, working in “health deserts” in New York City, Newark, Atlanta, Detroit, and Washington, DC, to more directly engage their target communities. Q4HE supplied COVID-19 testing, education, and vaccines via church-hosted events and provided each church with a community health navigator and resources to help neighbors obtain vital healthcare services.

Since the program’s inception in January 2021, more than 20,000 people have participated in testing events and over 54,000 have participated in vaccination events hosted by Choose Healthy Life in historically under-resourced, predominantly Black communities.

“This is not just about COVID. This is about the health disparities that made us vulnerable to death in the midst of this pandemic and every other pandemic that we have, that’s already here, and that’s getting ready to come. We have to get our community into a health status so that when something happens, it does not kill us 4 times or 6 times more than it kills anyone else anywhere else in the world. We have to overcome this, and this program was designed to help us do that.”
– Debra Fraser-Howze
Founder, Choose Healthy Life

“Our communities have suffered through endless medical hardships, and Choose Healthy Life created an infrastructure that helped me strengthen our ability to execute and deliver health services to the community. As a clergy member of the Black church, which is one of the most trusted resources in Black and Brown communities, CHL allowed me to expand and use more of my skill sets to minister beyond the walls and meet the needs of families beyond their salvation.”
– Reverend Kimberly Williams
Metropolitan Baptist Church, Newark, NJ

“The Quest partnership allows us to confront, in real time, the lack of access many of our neighbors face with testing. It also demonstrates that faith and science can work together to address our needs.”
– Reverend Jacques Andre DeGraff
Canaan Baptist Church of Christ, Harlem, NY

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