Community Leaders in Cicero Step Up to Address Vaccination Disparities
Illustration by Jennifer Chavez
By Abel Rodriguez
On a chilly day in early May, Catalina Prado, Erika Saucedo, and Yesenia Mata gathered outside El Porvenir grocery store in Cicero with care packages full of personal protective equipment and flyers for an upcoming vaccination event. The three women are part of the health navigators team with Family Focus, a non-profit with offices in Chicago, Cicero, and various suburbs in northeastern Illinois. Over the past few months the team has been encouraging Latinx community members to get vaccinated.
(L to R) Erika Saucedo, Catalina Prado and Yesenia Mata are part of the health navigators program with Family Focus. They stand outside grocery stores where they distribute personal protective equipment and help register residents for COVID vaccines. On May 5th, 2021 they set up a table outside El Porvenir grocery store in Cicero, Ill. (Photo by Abel Rodriguez).
Located west of the City of Chicago, Cicero is one of the largest suburbs in Cook County and is home to a mostly working-class, Mexican population, many of whom are essential workers who had no choice but to work through the pandemic. For many of them, the vaccine brought on a glimmer of hope but getting one was not easy.
“Many people don't know how to use technology and don’t know how to get an appointment and have had to travel far to get a vaccine,” said Prado. This is why she became a navigator and chose to talk to people in person outside the grocery store.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Cicero has led the western suburbs in confirmed cases of COVID-19. It wasn’t until February 2021 that cases in Cicero finally dropped below the Cook County average.
Yet local efforts to mitigate the spread of the pandemic, such as access to testing and vaccination, lagged behind other municipalities in Cook County. Data analysis reveals that the majority of vaccines distributed by the Cicero Health Department in January and February were not going to Cicero residents and a Cicero Independiente investigation revealed that federal monies meant to alleviate needs created by the pandemic went instead to pay police salaries.
Although vaccination rates have improved since then, Cicero still lags behind the Cook County averages for fully and partially vaccinated individuals. Cicero Independiente spoke to residents, service providers, public health officials, and local leaders, like Prado, to reflect on how they have come together to address local health disparities exacerbated by COVID.
COVID Testing
Cicero was one of the first municipalities in Cook County to adopt a mask mandate, in April 2020, and for months remained as the suburb with the highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases. This included an early outbreak at City View, a large nursing home with over 200 confirmed COVID cases. Nursing staff and union representatives at City View repeatedly said they were not provided with personal protective equipment.
Despite the mask policy and restrictions at stores and restaurants, COVID-19 cases ballooned in Cicero, where a vast number of residents continued working despite shutdowns. In May 2020, Cicero was identified as one of the top five ZIP codes in Illinois with the highest numbers of positive COVID-19 cases. At the time, thirty percent of people who were getting tested for COVID were testing positive but Cicero had no local testing sites. These numbers peaked in November. According to data published on the Town of Cicero’s website, the month of November saw close to 3,000 new COVID infections.
Testing sites in other communities in nearby Chicago had already been set up, such as the Loretto Hospital testing site in nearby Austin, but Cicero did not get its first testing site until May 22, 2020, when Howard Brown Health Center hosted a one-day testing location at Laramie and 34th.
When asked why it took so long to get a testing location in the area, Maria Punzo-Arias, the Town of Cicero clerk, blamed it on the high cost of testing. “We wish we could have done this [testing] a lot sooner…but as many people know, times are challenging right now and [as] the Town of Cicero we feel that we’ve gotta be able to spend taxpayer money wisely,” Punzo-Arias told Cicero Independiente during the event. “The way we see it, as elected officials, why do we have to use taxpayer money to do testing that is supposed to be free?”
A permanent testing location finally opened in late May at the Cicero location of ACCESS Community Health. However, appointments were limited and required a registration process and a video telehealth consultation, which made it difficult for residents to get appointments.
These disparities continued during the vaccination rollout.
Vaccine roll out
Cicero is one of the few municipalities in Cook County with a local health department. The Cicero Health Department began administering scarce vaccines as early as January 2021. However, data obtained by Cicero Independiente shows that in the early months of the rollout a majority of the vaccines went to non-Cicero residents.
Freedom of Information Act requests reveal that from early January through mid-March less than half of the vaccines administered by the Cicero Health Department went to people living in the 60804 ZIP code.
From January 13 through mid-February, Cicero's Health Department administered 7,446 individual vaccines. Only 2,615 of those went to Cicero residents. During this time, Cicero saw a spike in COVID-19 cases, according to data from the Cook County Department of Public Health. Updates published by the Town of Cicero show that in late January, Cicero had a positivity rate of 8.2 percent.
Between February 22 and March 19, the percentage of vaccines that went to Cicero residents increased slightly but still remained relatively low. During this period, the department administered 7,771 individual vaccines but only 4,031 shots went to Cicero residents.
People from Riverside (284), Westchester (197), Oak Park (177), La Grange (166), Downers Grove (73), and Wilmette (67) received Cicero’s vaccines from January through March. At least fifty-two doses went to individuals living outside of Illinois. Some of the data lacked complete ZIP codes so those numbers are not reflected in this count.
The Town of Cicero spokesperson did not respond to questions about the disparity.
Early on, the process to register for a vaccine at the Cicero Health Department was confusing. The Cicero Health Department used a different registration form that was separate from that used by the Cook County Health Department and local pharmacies. To register for a vaccine in Cicero, the Town’s official social media pages first promoted sending an email, then a Google form, and eventually at least one way for people to register in person. Some residents were also granted special codes to register using a different online registration form, but it is unclear how those codes were distributed.
“There should have been an effort, like an aggressive effort, to get those vaccines to Cicero residents, especially given the COVID rates,” said Carolina Guzman, who was tasked with getting appointments for her parents. “It's really disheartening to hear about this disparity… sometimes they can be like abstract notions, like statistics and numbers, but it's very real for people and their families.”
Guzman’s parents live in Cicero and qualified for early eligibility. They needed tech assistance so Guzman tried to find them appointments. She called the Cicero Health Department and filled out the online forms but she said she never heard back or secured an appointment.
“It was a frustrating experience just opening the form and seeing submissions are closed, and that being the end of the route,” said Guzman.
Eventually Guzman was able to find appointments for her parents at the United Center vaccination site in Chicago.
Access to health
Vaccine hesitancy amongst Latinx people has dominated conversations, but other factors contribute to low vaccination rates, according to Dr. Arshiya Baig, a researcher and doctor with the University of Chicago, who focuses on addressing health disparities in Latinx communities.
“Access is a bigger issue than vaccine hesitancy,” said Baig, pointing to a study from March 2021 by Kaiser Health News that suggests that sixty-one percent of Latinos plan to get vaccinated as soon as possible. Sixty-four percent of white Americans planned to get vaccinated, according to the same study.
“A lot of the modalities that we're using to get people signed up for the vaccine are pre-scheduling so that may be challenging for people who are shift workers,” said Baig. “If you need to have a smartphone or WiFi or a laptop or computer to access those schedules then that's another barrier.” Language accessibility, such as registration forms only being in English or phone operators not speaking Spanish, is another factor that could have affected vaccine registration in the early months of the rollout, said Baig.”
Entrance to the Morton East Health Clinic in Cicero, Ill. (Photo by April Alonso).
Access to healthcare in Cicero was already difficult pre-pandemic. A study published by the Cicero Community Collaborative in 2016 found that free or low-cost clinics were the biggest need in Cicero. Access to mental health services and prenatal care were also listed as areas that need more resources.
Currently Cicero only has two public health clinics: the Cicero Health Department Clinic and the Morton East Clinic, which was under threat of shutting down during the COVID-19 peak in November 2020 due to funding issues. The Morton East Clinic has since become a vaccination site operated by the Cook County Department of Public health (CCDPH).
The Town of Cicero spokesperson did not respond to detailed questions about the Town’s vaccination efforts and outreach.
Community based organizations step up
Vaccination rates in Cicero have increased in the last two months thanks in large part to the work of community-based organizations who have had to address disparities exacerbated by the pandemic.
Pillars Community Health is one of the non-profit groups in Cicero and suburban Cook County that have worked to address vaccine inequity.
Using information obtained through ten different listening sessions, Lorena Alvarez, who leads the education efforts at Pillars, said they have created culturally sensitive workshops and materials specifically for the Latinx community. While these bilingual education efforts to address hesitancy are important, Alvarez said that the organization has also spent a lot of time connecting people to vaccine appointments.
“A lot of clinics don't have the capacity to have evening hours or weekend hours, which is what we have seen with the COVID testing. It's really hard for folks to take the day off to get a vaccine, and so not everybody kind of has that privilege,” said Anna Padron-Sikora, vice president of Pillars Community Health.
Weeks prior Kimberly Alfaro was hesitant about receiving the COVID-19 vaccine but decided to do so after spotting the Black Workers Matter Vaccine popup event in Cicero, Ill. while she was driving. June 15th, 2021. (Photo by Abel Rodriguez).
Which is why Black Workers Matter, an organization headed by former Bimbo Bakeries factory employees in Cicero, has advocated for local employers to commit to paid time off and no counted absences for employees who choose to get vaccinated. Black Workers Matter has also hosted several vaccine pop-ups in Cicero’s industrial corridor.
Sandwiched between several large factories, including a new Amazon warehouse and Bimbo, where employees have voiced COVID safety concerns, the Austin-based organization set up their vaccine site in a vacant parking lot. They passed out flyers, and spoke to workers as they arrived for their shift about getting vaccinated and unfair labor practices.
Kimberly Alfaro said she had been driving by when she spotted the sign advertising the vaccine event. She didn't plan on getting vaccinated but decided to stop. She spoke with the organizers of the event and ended up receiving her first dose. “I was scared,” said Alfaro. “But I didn't want to wear a mask anymore and I was thinking of the well-being of my family.”
Daniel Giloth, an organizer with Black Workers Matter, said that more than seventy workers from the Bimbo factory were vaccinated at the event.
Black Workers Matter organized a pop-up vaccination site to provide COVID-19 vaccines for Cicero workers. They also demanded paid time off for those who received a vaccine and better wages for workers of the Bimbo Factory in Cicero, Ill. Organizers passed out flyers on the day of their vaccination event on June 15th, 2021 (Photo by Abel Rodriguez).
To attract essential workers at the factory who had yet to receive their COVID vaccine, Giloth said that Black Workers Matter was able to get cooperation from management for workers to get paid time off to get vaccinated and recover from any side effects that could arise.
Originally, Black Workers Matter attempted getting approval from the CCDPH for a pop-up testing site after workers reported lax COVID guidelines in the factory, but by the time they were approved vaccines were readily available and it made more sense to administer vaccines instead.
Commissioner Brandon Johnson, whose district includes majority Black suburbs to the west side of Chicago, recognized that coordination and engagement between Cook County government and these municipalities was strained even before the pandemic. Cicero’s commissioner, Frank Aguilar Jr., did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The West Side non-profit Family Focus Nuestra Familia has also been helping residents find appointments for vaccines and has held their own vaccination events in Cicero. In order to reach residents who might not have internet access or have found it difficult to fill the online registration form, Family Focus put together a mobile unit of health navigators to go to local stores and supermarkets and reach people there.
“I personally worked at grocery stores during the Census [outreach] and there's a lot of foot traffic,” said Jennifer Jimenez, lead health navigator with Family Focus. Because of their successful experience conducting in-person outreach for the Census at grocery stores, Jimenez said it made sense for health navigators to conduct vaccine outreach there as well. The pop-up vaccination events in Cicero have been important in connecting residents who otherwise would not have gotten vaccinated.
Evelyn Avila waits the required 15 minutes alongside her dad after receiving her first dose of a COVID vaccine at a Catholic Charities popup event held at Saint Frances of Rome School. May 15th, 2021 in Cicero, Ill (Photo by Abel Rodriguez).
At an event organized in mid-May by Catholic Charities, dozens of parents showed up with their teenage children after the Centers for Disease Control approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for teens sixteen and older. Parents interviewed at the event by Cicero Independiente said they decided to come to the site for its convenient location. People wanting to get a vaccine could walk into the gymnasium and within minutes receive the vaccine without an appointment.
“My arm feels a bit weird but I’m happy,” said Evelyn Availa, a teen who attended the event with her father because it was nearby.
To get the word out about the event, organizers made announcements during services at the Saint Frances of Rome congregation in Cicero.
“My mom told me about how Catholic Charities is promoting vaccines and also, Saint Frances of Rome was promoting it,” said one teen. Prior to the event he had heard about another vaccine event organized by Family Focus that took place a week earlier.
Diego, who asked we only identify him by his first name, said that he did not know where to get vaccinated prior to the day of the event. But his girlfriend found out about the Catholic Charities event and called to register him for an appointment.
The role of local health departments
Besides the Cook County Department of Public Health, Cicero, Berwyn and Stickney all have their own public health departments. The Cicero and Berwyn Health Departments did not respond to requests for interviews about how they have addressed the pandemic. But in a public forum held on February 6, Marge Paul, the previous president for the Berwyn Health Department, said she would have given the district an F for their response to the pandemic.
President of the Cook County Board of Commissioners, Toni Preckwinkle, said public health in general and across the country was not adequately prepared to respond to the pandemic. “We've come to understand that we've under invested in public health and that our public health departments did not have the breadth or the resilience to respond to a pandemic,” she said in an interview.
Cicero’s neighbor to the south, Stickney, also has its own public health district which oversees several cities and two unincorporated areas that make up Stickney Township. Early into the pandemic, the Health District began distributing personal protective equipment to long-term care facilities and doctors' offices in the township.
They also started a drive-up test site in partnership with the Burbank location of Pillars Community Health. Burbank lies just south of Stickney and is still part of Stickney Township, and hired staff to conduct contact tracing in June 2020.
Dr. Christopher Grunow, who heads the Stickney Public Health District, said that cases in the township peaked in November 2020 when they began prepping for vaccine distribution. In January the health district received its first shipment of vaccines.
Initially, Grunow said the health department reached out to employers, including local restaurants and day care centers, to distribute vaccines to their employees.
Data obtained by Cicero Independiente shows that between January and March the district administered fewer vaccines than the Cicero Health Department, but a higher percentage of the vaccines went to residents of the township.
According to the data, a total of 3,258 vaccines were administered and 2,215 went to residents of the 60459, 60402, 60455, 60638, 60629, 60804 ZIP codes, all of which correspond with Stickney Township. Though the 60804 and 60402 ZIP codes are associated with Cicero and Berwyn, some areas of Stickney also use the ZIP codes.
In total, Stickney Township residents received just under seventy percent of the total vaccines distributed by the health district.
Grunow believes that local health departments play a crucial role in addressing health disparities that led to such high COVID rates in the area. “I think that one of the reasons our society was so burdened by this is we're not a healthy society… [and] access to health care is not really good,” said Grunow.
Though for the past few months the health district has been focusing on addressing COVID-19, it still offers several other resources such as dental services, behavioral health services, nutrition services, and medical checkups all free of charge for Stickney Township residents.
“I think as a society, we have to seriously look at the health of our communities and realize that a strong public health infrastructure is like having a strong fire department. You don't defund the fire department because they're not having to put out a fire for a couple months,” said Grunow.
“The people of Stickney Township back in 1946 voted by referendum to establish the health department. That's the type of wisdom that every community needs to have,” Grunow added.
Cicero Independiente requested similar datasets from the Berwyn Public Health District. However, at the time of request in mid-April, they had not yet started administering vaccines and were unable to provide such documents. Their health director was not available for an interview.
According to the CCDPH, 58.7 percent of Berwyn residents have received at least one COVID vaccine and 45.9 percent are fully vaccinated.
Moving forward
Many in Cicero and Berwyn have seen their lives affected by COVID-19. Moving forward Alvarez and Padron say community education will be a main focus as the county begins to recover.
As of late June, 45,763 Cicero residents have received at least one COVID vaccine and 33,047 residents are fully vaccinated, according to the CCDPH. It is unclear whether the vaccines administered through the Cicero Department of Health are reflected in this data.
Alvarez predicted that much of the summer will be spent connecting people to vaccines and providing health education, but as immunity builds, other types of resources will be needed.
“We've all been impacted by COVID-19 this year, and some of us in more dramatic ways than others... We just have to keep talking about the loss, and now look for the hope. [COVID] might have caused some to lose their job or created food insecurity, now we’ll focus on how we can help connect to those resources, said Padron.
Jimenez said that health navigators with Family Focus have started going door to door to help register residents for vaccines and also help with DACA renewals and citizenship services. For Jimenez, human connection has been key to convincing people to get vaccinated.
“Our job has definitely been to educate and to promote facts. In the Latino community sometimes we have that distrust towards the government, or [people] were scared because they were undocumented and thought that they couldn't get vaccinated,” said Jimenez. “When they meet the health navigators, when they talk to them, get to see their personality and their passion.... It has definitely helped people change their minds.”
Funding for the health navigators program expired at the end of June. However, Jimenez said that they are heavily involved with the community and aid residents in any way possible. “Health navigators are so amazing… they're very involved in the community and whether or not they're in the program, they're always volunteering, they're always there, and I can say for sure that if they’re not health navigators we will definitely see them again.”
For Giloth, having a trustworthy organization was key to getting workers vaccinated. “We thought that involving a group that already had a reputation for fighting for worker justice would be more trusted than then other institutions, governmental or nonprofits that workers weren't familiar with,” said Giltoh.
Securing employer cooperation was another lesson learned by the organization. Giloth said he also would have liked to have seen more effort from the union representing Bimbo workers to secure vaccines.
“There's a narrative out there that workers are hesitant to get the vaccination… but really, workers are just really practical. They're working twelve-hour shifts… and they’re also getting points deducted for absences,” said Giloth. “So we wanted to take away all the practical obstacles, we wanted to put the vaccines in the flow where workers already are.”
Learn about vaccines in greater Cook County in this interactive page.
Abel Rodriguez is a contributing reporter for Cicero Independiente.
This piece is part of a collaboration that includes the Institute for Nonprofit News, The Beacon/KCUR; Bridge Magazine/Side Effects Media; Cicero Independiente/South Side Weekly; Detour Detroit/Planet Detroit/Tostada Magazine; Evanston RoundTable/Growing Community Media; Madison 365/Wausau Pilot & Review; and MinnPost/Sahan Journal. The project was made possible by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation with additional support from INN's Amplify News Project and the Solutions Journalism Network.
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