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Three organizations have come together to educate and encourage Black women regarding getting the COVID-19 vaccine. The Black Women’s Health Imperative, Women’s National Basketball Players Association (WNBPA) and the National Council of Negro Women, Inc. (NCNW) have joined forces for the Take The Shot for the WIN campaign to raise awareness about the benefits of being vaccinated against the coronavirus among Black women.
“In Black and brown communities, women play a big role in the health decisions for their children, elder parents, their partners, and themselves,'” Terri Carmichael Jackson, WNBPA Executive Director, said in a statement. “As we have seen recently, the women of The W have pretty powerful voices and they can help mobilize our communities. It made sense, then, for our fully ‘vaxxed’ membership to prioritize COVID-19 vaccine education and form a mighty trifecta with BWHI and NCNW to launch the Take The Shot for the WIN campaign!”
Linda Goler Blount, President and CEO of the Black Women’s Health Imperative, pointed out that there has been significant “disparities in health, economic, and social outcomes” for Black families, making immunization more crucial for Black women.
“The Delta variant has made vaccination critical,” she said. “Take The Shot for the WIN will take us one step further in reaching Black women so that they’re not only empowered to educate their families, friends, and communities about the COVID-19 vaccines, but will add the voices of strong influencers and role models, as partners, to bolster their efforts.”
Their efforts are based on Black women dying at alarming rates from this deadly virus. In a recent study, they analyzed data from Michigan and Georgia and found that Black women were three times more likely to die from COVID-19 than white and Asian men. It was also found that American Black women were dying from COVID-19 at a higher rate than every other group, male or female, except Black men. Michigan and Georgia were the only states reporting data by age, race and sex.
