(bright music) - [Announcer] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

(upbeat music) - It's been over a year since the COVID-19 pandemic completely altered our world, our community and our daily lives.

There have been more than 30 million cases of COVID-19, diagnosed in the United States and a staggering 500,000 deaths across the country.

And while the pandemic has impacted everyone in some really deep and lasting ways it has been come really clear that longstanding social and health inequalities have been exacerbated to form what a lot of public health advocates have called a twin pandemic, COVID-19 and racial disparities.

If we take a look at the numbers, the CDC reports that while black Americans are slightly more likely than white Americans to be diagnosed with COVID, they're about three times more likely to be hospitalized and about twice as likely to die of the disease.

In our native American and Alaska native communities, there are about two times more likely to be diagnosed with COVID than white Americans and almost four times more likely to be hospitalized.

And two times more likely to die of the disease.

Similar rates are seen in Hispanic and Latin X communities.

The CDC states that race and ethnicity are risk markers for other underlying conditions that affect health including things like socioeconomic status, access to healthcare and exposure to the virus related to employment and occupation.

With us today to discuss COVID-19 and that intersection of racial disparities within the pandemic, are Dr. Laprincess Brewer and Pastor Kenneth Rowe.

Pastor Rowe is the Senior Pastor of Christ Church of the Jesus Hour here in Rochester, Minnesota.

And he's a valued member of the community.

He's been at the forefront of providing support, hope and awareness and organizing for his congregants and the local black community.

Welcome Pastor Rowe.

And Dr.

Brewer is a cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic.

She's committed to developing strategies to reduce and ultimately eliminate cardiovascular disease, health disparities in racial and ethnic minority populations and in underserved communities through efforts like health promotion and through community-based participatory research.

Welcome Dr.

Brewer.

- [Brewer] Thank you so much for having me.

- So, we're gonna jump right in.

In both of your professional and even your personal experiences, how have you seen the racial disparities in health impact members of the community during the pandemic?

- So that's a wonderful question.

And as COVID-19 infections, continue to spread across the U.S. and Minnesota.

It's become very clear that the burden of COVID-19 is not being felt equally across racial lines.

And unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has devastated the African-American community with the number of deaths from COVID-19 in our communities, outnumbering our representation in the population, even here in Southeastern Minnesota.

So many of our loved ones have been lost, so much potential has been lost in our communities - Pastor Rowe, how are you seeing this in the community?

- Thanks, Nicole.

I solely amplify of what Dr.

Brewer said.

And seeing it within the faith community, it really hits home early.

And by that I mean we don't have where people get information early enough to be able to do anything about it.

And then the information that they do have they don't know how to really apply that and making sure they get all the the accuracy about what's going on with the virus.

And so when you don't have accurate and current information, the tendency is then not to take it as serious as you really have to.

And so then you see the spread of it being really amplified within the African-American community.

And so I think it has a major impact, especially within the churches, because then people stop attending churches and they disconnect from what's going on within the community.

- Thank you for sharing that.

Specifically speaking about the faith community and the work that you do in that space, what are some ways that you're working to combat some of that misinformation or just raising awareness and the ways in which you're addressing those needs in the community right now?

- Great, that's the biggest thing is raising awareness because there's a fear factors, there's lack of accurate information.

And of course, a lot of people look at the media and that can be very confusing at times.

And so it's very important for us.

And we're thankful for Dr.

Brewer and her communications through the FAITH program because weekly, she sends us information as to what's going on within the community with COVID.

And we're able to disperse that information through our bulletins, through our social media connections and really one-on-one telephone calls to try to make people understand the importance of getting the vaccines, the importance of maintaining a proper distancing and all the things that we get from the CDC.

And so it's one of those situations where if you don't get accurate information, if you don't get it soon enough and accurately enough and then you have a tendency of of being somewhat a victim of what's happening with this pandemic.

- And Dr.

Brewer, so much of your work is around, health promotion within the community.

So we read a lofty stats like I did at the top and we talk about disparities and gaps but these are real life people in communities that are behind all of that.

So can you talk a little bit about why health promotion is so important in this context and how do you empower community during a global public health crisis?

What does that look like?

- Well, this is my passion combating health disparities in order to achieve health equity.

And in order to do that you have to really meet people where they are and really tailor your promotion in their social context.

So, as Pastor Rowe mentioned at the very beginning of the pandemic, there were so and still so much misinformation out there, regarding the COVID-19 infection, the preventive measures.

And even at one point there was this misconception that African-Americans were somehow immune to COVID-19 and why was that wrong.

So we had to, in our strategy build infrastructure, based on our community base, which is through our research partnerships with African-American churches.

And we knew that we had to culturally tailor the information.

What we were seeing out there was not very relatable to many of these underserved populations.

So we wanted to make sure that it was in their context.

There were visuals and imagery that looked like them and to make it very simple for them to understand.

And over the past year, we've launched a social marketing campaign.

That's been delivered by community members and we call them communication leaders and they are community health workers.

We also have a financial advisor as well who actually delivered this information on our social media platform through Facebook.

And as Pastor Rowe mentioned, we also have a network of over 100 African-American churches here in Southeastern Minnesota, as well as the twin cities area that we send out weekly emails, our weekly email blasts in which we're providing them with accurate information and also encouraging them.

This is a time that we all are very stressed and we just wanna also encourage people to keep going and to live a healthy lifestyle the best that they can, and also providing them with accurate COVID-19 information.

- That sounds fantastic.

And there we'll have some examples of some of that material here as well.

You mentioned that the community health workers were also going out with financial advisors and I think one issue that, where the pandemic has become this storm in a way of all these factors that have been contributing even before the pandemic to inequalities in health care.

And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about some of these factors, income, education and housing and how the nature of the pandemic has really exacerbated that.

I said and it makes sense to me but I think that that phenomenon is really at the core of how we're seeing these numbers manifest themselves in terms of how it's impacting the community.

- And I wanna start out before I delve into that, is that there's really this misconception that all Minnesotans are healthy.

We've been consistently designated as one of the healthiest States in our nation for decades.

However there clear health disparities that exist here in Minnesota, especially among African-Americans and I'm a cardiologist, so I focus on heart disease.

So African-Americans are two times more likely to die than their white counterparts.

And they're less likely to have their risk factors for heart disease control.

So the hypertension, diabetes, obesity and they have these high burdens of what has become the buzzword throughout the pandemic preexisting medical conditions.

These are what they are, and yes, they do place them at a higher risk for COVID-19 infection and complications.

But as you mentioned, there's another story or side to that.

And much of the racial disparities can be counted or trace back to what we call pre-existing systemic and racial inequities or the social determinants of health.

Also I like to call them the social drivers of health as well.

And these are the environments in which people are born, live, work, play and worship.

And they affect health outcomes, and they can be both negative and positive influences on our health.

And unfortunately African-Americans and other racial and ethnic minority groups are faced with an overwhelmingly high burden of the negative social determinants of health.

So you mentioned a few, and we've been talking about chronic stress also related to food insecurity, systemic racism, lack of access to quality health care, the wealth gap, as well as residing in socioeconomically disenfranchised communities.

So as you mentioned, many of these factors have really been amplified or unveiled if you will, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

And these really have prevented these groups from living their best lives and reaching their full health potential.

- I know vaccination is of course on everybody's mind right now year in and having a vaccine you both been vaccinated.

So that's wonderful.

Can you both talk a little bit about the specific efforts that you've been working on around vaccination in the community?

- Will I go first, Dr.

Brewer if that's okay?

- [Brewer] Sounds great.

- One of the most important things is to dispel, if you will, the bad information, using that term.

Because from a vaccination and medical treatment and all those things, we know there is a fear factor amongst African-Americans and rightly so in a lot of cases.

So one of our focus have been... And let me back up just for a little bit, because with the fact that we have been involved with FAITH, thanks to Dr.

Brewer, at fostering African-Americans improvement in Total Health, it has been the catalyst by which we can communicate with people the need for healthy living and the need for both physically, mentally and psychological.

And so that has really been an excellent instrument for us to use in reaching our people when we talk about this pandemic.

And so when we look at the need for people to be vaccinated it's important that we show people my example, if you will, someone that they have trust in that have been willing to take the vaccine and follow the guidelines from the medical industry and to do whatever we can to assist them in getting vaccinated.

I sent out emails and we put it in our bulletin and the people have a problem getting scheduled.

I don't know if you've had an opportunity to go onto the website to try to schedule yourself, for vaccination, but for an elderly person it can be a frightening experience.

And so what we've tried to do is connect with those individuals, make sure that they can get registered in their area and get the vaccination.

The other thing is following up with them, to make sure that they maintain the schedule when they're scheduled for the first or second shots that they can get there.

They don't have any transportation problems because dealing with all the other things they have to deal with, it is very difficult for them to maintain focus on making sure that they get to the medical services to get those vaccinations.

So it's a follow through and it's consistent and we have to keep doing that.

- Fantastic.

So I can elaborate on our FAITH program.

So as Pastor Rowe mentioned our FAITH program which is an acronym, as he said which stands for Fostering African-American Improvement in Total Health is originally a cardiovascular health and wellness program.

But due to the pandemic, we had to pivot because we knew that the pandemic would be affecting our participants, our network, and we just couldn't sit back and watch this devastate our communities.

So with our efforts, we initially started out with just about the COVID-19 infection, what it means, how to protect yourself from it.

And the information that we have been disseminating to our churches has evolved time.

So now we're talking about the COVID-19 vaccine and how to get it, what are the concerns?

And how do you sign up?

So access to the vaccine here in Rochester has been available.

However, many of the communities that we serve with the FAITH program really aren't aware of these opportunities, and the information that has been provided hasn't been prioritizing of them.

So what we're doing now is collaborating with local and state officials to help overcome any barriers.

So as Pastor Rowe mentioned, it can be overwhelming to go onto websites alone especially for our elderly.

So we're hoping in over the next few weeks we will be collaborating with the Olmsted County Public Health Department and Mayo Clinic to start community vaccine clinics at local African-American churches, here in Rochester to make this process seamless for those who really want to get this vaccine.

And we know that here in Rochester the African-American population, as well as other racial and ethnic minority groups are marginalized.

So we wanted to make sure that we have intentional and purposeful...

I don't really like to use the word targeting but prioritizing them for the vaccine.

So we knew also that there needed to be an education component around the vaccine.

So a few weeks ago we held what we call the Barbershop Talk which is actually headed up by Pastor Andre Crockett at Vision Church.

And we had health professionals physicians of color from Mayo Clinic, answering questions from the community about the vaccine, and also just delivering information about how to get the vaccine.

And it was well received, well attended.

And it was a way for us to reach out to this community that has not been reached out to.

And I did wanna just provide some statistics here that we African-Americans make up 6% about of the population here in Minnesota but only about 3% have completed their full vaccine series.

So our goal is to increase that number by making it a very simple and easy to get the vaccine.

And I know Pastor Rowe also mentioned that people do have concerns about the vaccine and we wanted to address those head on.

And these are outlandish concerns, they're concerns that anyone would have about getting a vaccine, even as healthcare providers.

So is it safe?

How was it developed?

Is it effective?

What are the side effects?

So these are all questions that we answered during our Barbershop Talk a few weeks ago and also through our social media page as well as the weekly email blast we have this information.

And fortunately and we're so grateful to our churches that they're serving as vessels to disseminate this information back to the communities.

So we're very grateful for our church pastors such as Pastor Rowe, who truly care about, not only their congregation members, but their community.

- And thank you for that.

It seems like a really comprehensive approach that is tackling a lot of what you both talked about in terms of the misinformation and trying to get answers to people.

And I just wanted to roll it back a little bit because I've had the opportunity to speak to you Dr.

Brewer before about the FAITH program but for our listeners out there, can you talk a little bit about the importance of the faith community and tethering all this health work to the faith community, particularly in the context of the black church?

- Yeah, so the the black church has been, in my opinion the longstanding backbone of the African-American community.

And also in my opinion, the first social networking platform before there was a Facebook, before there was a Twitter where did African-Americans get their trusted information?

The black church.

And it is the pillar of the African-American community.

It's a part of our, not only religious and spiritual life but also political life, social life.

And also the African-American church have been a place of receipt of health services as well.

Many of the African-American churches have nurses gills which also provide health services.

So why not go to, or work or partner with the African-American church to disseminate trusted health information?

The African-American community trusts the black church, like I said it's been a longstanding, trusted institution.

So it's been a win-win for me in working with the church and also personally as with my own, FAITH has been a blessing to be able to partner with churches, given my upbringing in the African-American church.

- Pastor Rowe, would you like to add anything to that yourself as a leader of a church community?

- Well, looking back and where we started and this seems like a long time ago, Dr.

Brewer with FAITH, but we have evolved as a church community, and we talk about total health.

It's just amazing how people have adopted lifestyle changes and become a part of improving total life.

Because it's not just the fact that we're a spiritual organization, which is our number one mission is souls, but you wanna have healthy bodies in order to have a strong congregation that can raise souls for Christ.

So the work that's been done through Dr.

Brewer and our FAITH partners in every church.

We have one here at Christ Church of the Jesus Hour, we've been able to connect people with good dietary habits, following good exercise.

Thanks to Dr.

Brewer, I exercise three or four times a week.

I run with my Fitbit.

- Awesome.

(laughs) - And I make sure informations get loaded.

And the information that we have on the website for FAITH is just invaluable.

And this from the beginning, Nicole, having a professional medical professionals come in and sit down with our congregation and talk to them about medical conditions, everything from diabetes to heart disease and all of those things and have that personal one-on-one connection.

That connection has really served us tremendously.

As we got into this pandemic that they have faith in Dr.

Brewer, they have faith in that program that they've now become a part of and that has just helped us tremendously.

So when we talk to them about what's coming out and what's being published through FAITH, they can embrace it and have a trust in it.

And so it's just been so important for us.

And it's a lifestyle change that we're all going through.

And I think as a result of that we've been able to handle this pandemic a lot better.

And when it's first started, and we couldn't come to church, we were still able to get vital information out to people.

'Cause people became isolated, they went into their homes, they didn't go any place.

They didn't even see family members.

And so getting the information out to them was so critical.

And it still is 'cause we're not through this thing yet.

- Yeah, definitely not through it yet.

As I'm thinking about vaccinations, what would you say to a community member who is currently reluctant to get a vaccine?

What words would you say to them?

- That's a great question.

'Cause we talk about it every week.

(laughs) The most important thing is it's not just for their protection, but as protection for their family, for their community, for the people they work with, even the people that they meet in the grocery store, and it's important that we deal with it as a community.

We're not isolated in this thing, while sometimes you feel like you're the only one that's involved in this we're in this as a community.

So it's been just critical that we maintain that open dialogue with people and let them feel empowered to the point where they know that they're part of this thing.

And it is vital for their protection but protection of everyone around them.

- I'm sure there's so many lessons learned.

We're certainly not through the pandemic but post the pandemic.

There'll be a lot of lessons learned in the medical fields in community health work.

And Dr.

Brewer, I'm wondering, you talked a little bit about how you're partnering now with public health and community partners through the Mayo Clinic.

What is the responsibility as you see it of those institutions to address and get ahead of these disparities broadly speaking.

And if we ever do have another pandemic, because I think there's so much power in the grassroots work that is happening certainly in those connections, but what is the responsibility of those institutions from your perspective?

- Yeah, so, as I mentioned earlier, many of the disparities that we're seeing are a result of structural inequities.

And structural inequities can be broken down and rebuilt.

So that is a responsibility that I see from not only our federal agencies, but also healthcare systems.

So we are equipped from a resource standpoint to address many of these health disparities.

The issue really is, how are we allocating these resources to populations who need the most?

And these are the socioeconomically disadvantaged.

These are the under and uninsured.

And unfortunately many are racial and ethnic minority groups, including African-Americans, many who are part of the faith community.

So I would encourage our health systems and the powers that be, if you will to really take in your own empathy pulse as a community and really work to intentionally address many of these issues.

And that is the only way that we're going to achieve health equity.

- Thank you, Dr.

Brewer.

Pastor Rowe, any thoughts around the responsibility of our institutions in this space?

- Well, I agree with Dr.

Brewer 100%.

Just the fact that they need to remember that we're inclusive community, that we're a community of many ethnic backgrounds.

And people with different beliefs, not just from a faith perspective but from a cultural and social economic perspective.

And they need to know that everybody then and I don't want to despair here doesn't work for Mayo Clinic or a large corporation, there are people that are isolated because of the type of work that they do.

And so it's important for our community of medical and social to make sure that no one is left out in a sense, no one is not communicated with.

So they may have to use different methods to get information out to people.

Everybody doesn't read a Facebook page necessarily or maybe even watch television to that extent but they still need accurate and timely information.

And so we need to make sure that there's no gaps within the community itself.

- Thank you for that vision, Pastor Rowe.

And as we're closing up here how are there some ways that our community can connect with more information about the FAITH program and other connections that you're making, around the work of the pandemic but then certainly the broader work of the FAITH program?

- Yes, we will provide links to our Facebook page.

We're posting daily, multiple times a day, accurate information from trusted reliable sources including Mayo Clinic, the CDC, as well as materials that we have developed on our own.

Again, integrating all this information but making it culturally relevant and tailored to our communities.

So I will provide a link to our Facebook page as well and folks can feel free to share our information.

We really appreciate you sharing our information with your communities as well.

- Thank you so much, Dr.

Brewer.

Pastor Rowe, any closing comments here?

- Thank you so much, Nicole for the opportunity to chat with you.

And Dr.

Brewer knows she's definitely on my top list, the work that she does, Nicole is just invaluable for our community and we thank God for her and we wanna make sure that everyone is connected to the information that she's providing because it's invaluable.

She thinks about us every day.

- Wonderful.

Thank you so much.

Thank you both for participating in this really important conversation.

I think we just skimmed the surface but some really good things to take away here as we're moving forward.

And thank you both for your work and dedication in such a challenging time.

- Thank Nicole.

- Thank you.

Its a pleasure.

- I'm Nicole Nfonoyim-hara with KSMQ Public Television.

Thank you for watching.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

(upbeat music)