A new campaign by the civil rights organization Equality California aims to get COVID-19 vaccine information to LGBTQ Angelenos.
Rick Chavez-Zbur, the organization’s executive director, said LGBTQ people as a community have a harder time surviving the coronavirus and other illnesses because of systemic discrimination, which leads to stress and socioeconomic disparities, and shortens lives.
That has a disproportionate impact on young people.
"Four out of 10 homeless youth in our major cities identify as members of the LGBTQ+ community," he said.
Equality California's campaign, which is running in both Spanish and English, promotes vaccination as safe, free, and effective. Chavez-Zbur said there's a unique need to get this narrative out:
"31% of the LGBTQ community nationwide doesn't trust government data related to COVID-19 information."
The study also found LGBTQ communities of color had been harder hit by the pandemic:
Our main finding is that the impact of the pandemic on LGBT communities cannot be fully understood without considering race and ethnicity as well as sexual orientation and gender identity. In short, across a number of indicators, LGBT people of color are more likely to experience the health and economic impacts of COVID-19 than non-LGBT White people
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