Vaccine Equity: Riverside Vaccinates Farmworkers

Riverside County Public Health Department, in partnership with the Coachella Valley Equity Collaborative (spearheaded by the Desert Healthcare District & Foundation (DHCD) and community-based partners, like TODEC), launched mobile vaccination clinics that brought COVID-19 vaccines directly to farmworkers in the fields.

Community-based partners helped register farmworkers, who have been some of the most impacted community members due to COVID-19, at their worksites. They also worked to answer questions in preferred languages, including indigenous languages such as Purepecha. Partners in these efforts worked to address a broad range of concerns during vaccine registration and administration, including concerns related to vaccine side effects, immigration status and public charge. To date, the mobile vaccination clinics have successfully vaccinated well over 5,000 farmworkers throughout the Eastern Coachella Valley (and counting!). These successful efforts have also been elevated by the State as promising practices to replicate across California. This collaboration was made possible with funding support from the Public Health Institute’s Together Towards Health Initiative.