{"doi":"10.1186/s12939-021-01567-3","title":"COVID-19 mitigation for high-risk populations in Springfield Massachusetts USA: a health systems approach","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Numerous reports have demonstrated the disproportionate impact that COVID-19 has had on vulnerable populations. Our purpose is to describe our health care system's response to this impact. METHODS: We convened a Workgroup with the goal to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on the most medically vulnerable people in Springfield, Massachusetts, USA, particularly those with significant social needs. We did this through (1) identifying vulnerable patients in high-need geographic areas, (2) developing and implementing a needs assessment/outreach tool tailored to meet cultural, linguistic and religious backgrounds, (3) surveying pharmacies for access to medication delivery, (4) gathering information about sources of food delivery, groceries and/or prepared food, (5) gathering information about means of travel, and (6) assessing need for testing. We then combined these six elements into a patient-oriented branch and a community outreach/engagement branch. CONCLUSIONS: Our highly intentional and methodical approach to patient and community outreach with a strong geographic component has led to fruitful efforts in COVID-19 mitigation. Our patient-level outreach engages our health centers' clinical teams, particularly community health workers, and is providing the direct benefit of material and service resources for our at-risk patients and their families. Our community efforts leveraged existing relationships and created new partnerships that continue to inform us-healthcare entities, healthcare employees, and clinical teams-so that we can grow and learn in order to authentically build trust and engagement.","journal":"International Journal for Equity in Health","year":2021,"id":209576,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":3,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9611,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":797240,"name":"Cristina Huebner Torres","orcid":"0000-0002-4773-6010","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":327597,"name":"Jessica Collins","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":797691,"name":"Jane Garb","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":797692,"name":"Marian Kent","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":797693,"name":"Sarah Perez McAdoo","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":797241,"name":"Yemisi Oloruntola-Coates","orcid":"0000-0002-7667-2861","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":797242,"name":"Jacob Smith","orcid":"0000-0002-3056-2237","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":797694,"name":"Abraham Thomas","orcid":null,"position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":797239,"name":"Paul A. Pirraglia","orcid":"0000-0002-7762-0289","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":19,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:52:05.171356Z","pmid":"34666781","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}