https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-president-biden-can-deliver-on-his-vaccine-promise-to-communities-of-color/

President Biden’s promise to ensure that communities of color are not left behind in the vaccine rollout shows that he is ready to tackle the pervasive inequities of health care laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic. But turning that promise into practice is not just a case of establishing more vaccination sites. We first need to know where those at high risk within underserved communities are located in order to set up mobile vaccination sites in the right places, and that will require the federal government to use a scientific, data-driven system for identifying those most in need.

The current process for identifying such individuals needs to be fine-tuned. It relies on the CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index (SVI), which was originally developed to help FEMA deliver aid to communities most in need in the aftermath of natural disasters. SVI takes into account census data on some important variables that correspond to individual health, such as housing density and status of employment. But it does not consider other critical risk factors associated with COVID-19 such as access to fresh food, air quality and access to public transportation in a given neighborhood.