A grant from the New Jersey Department of Health is supporting the expansion of Rutgers Global Health Institute’s Equitable Recovery program. Efforts are underway to help underserved communities in Essex, Mercer, and Middlesex counties offer residents accessible COVID-19 vaccination and testing.
Rutgers students are working to address health disparities and infant mortality, to understand why Black and Hispanic women are hesitant to get vaccines, and on other projects that benefit society as part of a new initiative.
COVID-19 testing and vaccination clinics at the New Brunswick Performing Arts Center, where the ballet is a member company, are part of Rutgers Global Health Institute’s Equitable Recovery program. The clinics, which are open to the public, helped the ballet’s dancers safely return to the studio and stage.
Rutgers students in clinical and non-clinical programs of study can volunteer to help with operations at the university’s on-campus vaccination clinic at the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy in Piscataway.
In underserved neighborhoods in the city’s South and West wards, small business owners and local leaders are voices for their communities. Their input and guidance inform the rollout of initiatives to improve vaccination rates and help communities build resilience—a top goal of the Equitable Recovery for New Jersey’s Small Businesses program.
In an episode of the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast titled “Responding to the Omicron Variant,” Rutgers Global Health Institute director Richard Marlink talks about vaccination uptake, protecting older people, mask mandates, frustrations with government officials, travel bans, and holiday gatherings.
University experts in infectious disease, epidemiology, pediatrics, and global health share insights related to Omicron, which the World Health Organization has labeled a variant of concern.
Rutgers faculty member Simon Li, a principal investigator in the Rutgers pediatric clinical trial for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, addresses questions about the vaccine rollout for this age group.
The clinics offered a convenient location for New Brunswick residents and underscored the market’s mission to connect food and health. The initiative was organized in partnership with Rutgers Global Health Institute, Visiting Nurse Association of Central Jersey, New Jersey Black Women Physicians Association, and New Brunswick Tomorrow.
Emanuel Garcia, who owns a Mexican store in the city’s Esperanza neighborhood, has seen his business take a huge hit during the COVID-19 pandemic. A Rutgers Global Health Institute program helped him stay open and continue serving the community’s needs safely.
