Health equity prioritization (Techquity in health)

How can resources get to the right people at the right time in a large, diverse community where English may not be the native language for people living there? Even with great digital health resources, there’s still a techquity gap when languages are a barrier to health outreach.

Over 1.6M people live in Alameda County, and it’s estimated that at least 47% of adults and 40% of minors speak a language other than English at home. Our platform already had capabilities to support content in multiple languages, as well as the ability to deliver SMS text messages and emails to participants in that language. Additionally, out-of-the-box content would already be translated.

At the time, Primary already supported 18 languages but was missing Farsi and Tagalog. Vaccine access was also limited and time-sensitive, and wait times for any non out-of-the-box content to be translated prolonged a population getting access to resources we wanted them to have.

By partnering with Primary, Alameda County enabled multiple ways a person could access appointment options without language as a barrier to entry.

Thoughtfully and quickly launch new vaccine sites with health techquity (tech + equity) in mind.

While Primary added Farsi and Tagalog to our codebase for out-of-the-box translation enablement, the amazing team at Alameda County provided translations for any of the specialized, custom content to test and validate that everything was ready to go as quickly as humanly possible.

In tandem, Primary helped Alameda County launch the initial vaccine sites with:

• Custom invitations for language groups
• Waitlists to prioritize
• Digital surveys in multiple languages to help field staff on-site plan the resources required for patient visits
  • Example: Asking if someone needs specialized transportation, if interpreters would be needed, etc.

Support a vibrant community of over 1.6M people with digital access in 8 languages for registration, surveys, results, information, and more!

By partnering with Primary, Alameda County offered time-sensitive vaccine access in 8 languages:

• English (en)
• Spanish (es)
• Chinese (zh)
• Vietnamese (vi)
• Tagalog (tl)
• Arabic (ar)
• Korean (ko)
• Farsi (fa)