The HAVI Statement on Frontline Workers and COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution

FEBRUARY 5, 2021 — The COVID-19 pandemic has ravaged communities already devastated by the ongoing epidemic of violence. During the pandemic, hospital-based violence intervention specialists—whose work to prevent, interrupt, and respond to violence in their communities was already incredibly challenging and dangerous—have also been tasked with the dissemination of COVID-19 information, PPE, food, and other key supplies, as well as encouraging testing in their communities. These frontline violence intervention workers provide critical in-person COVID-19 public health services, at risk to their own health, and should be designated under the CDC’s Phase 1 guidelines for vaccination allocation.

In some jurisdictions, hospital-based violence intervention workers are classified as a form of community health workers (CHW), and thus fall under the CDC’s Phase 1 vaccination recommendations. However, given that regulatory definitions for CHWs vary from state to state, it is critically important that the CDC explicitly include hospital-based violence intervention specialists as qualified health care providers to avoid the possibility of accidental oversight in their classification. Given their essential work addressing both violence and COVID-19, we strongly recommend Phase 1a. 

Frontline violence intervention specialists have existing credibility and vast networks of connections in communities that can be challenging to reach with traditional public health campaigns. This makes them ideally situated to disseminate culturally responsive public health education and to strengthen vaccine readiness in the communities that have been hardest hit by both the epidemics of violence and COVID-19. The inclusion of hospital-based violence intervention specialists in Phase 1 of the vaccine distribution plan will enable them to continue their critical, life-saving work and to leverage their potentially powerful role in community vaccine rollout.

The Health Alliance for Violence Intervention (the HAVI) is a national network of hospital-based violence intervention programs that serve violently injured patients by addressing the social determinants of health. The HAVI has expanded health-based, trauma-informed care through innovative community-hospital partnerships and the cultivation of a powerful national alliance of violence intervention specialists, emergency room doctors, trauma surgeons, and researchers who work in communities affected by violence.