Office of Minority Health

National Minority Health Month 2022: Giving Your Community A Boost!

Washington, DC—April is National Minority Health Month, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Minority Health (OMH) is spotlighting the important role individuals and organizations can play in helping to reduce health disparities and improve the health of racial and ethnic minority and American Indian and Alaska Native communities.

The theme for National Minority Health Month 2022 is Give Your Community a Boost! The theme focuses on the continued importance of vaccines and boosters as one of the strongest tools we can use to protect communities from COVID-19, which has disproportionately affected communities of color. The theme also supports the many other efforts happening in communities throughout the country to advance health equity.

“This National Minority Health Month, we are championing both COVID-19 vaccines and boosters for ourselves, our families, and our communities,” said RADM Felicia Collins, M.D., Deputy Assistant Secretary for Minority Health and HHS OMH Director. “While it is possible for vaccinated people to get COVID-19, vaccines and boosters are safe and effective in reducing severe disease, hospitalization, and death, which are disproportionately more prevalent among racial and ethnic minority and American Indian and Alaska Native populations.”

Longstanding health and social inequities have increased the risk of COVID-19 severe illness and death, regardless of age, for many racial and ethnic minority and American Indian and Alaska Native individuals. As of March 10, 2022, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that Black and Latino persons are more than two times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 infections than non-Hispanic whites. Meanwhile, American Indian or Alaska Native persons are 3.1 times more likely to be hospitalized due to a COVID-19 infection. As of March 23, 2022, more than 340,000 racial and ethnic minority and American Indian and Alaska Native persons have died from COVID-19. Additionally, according to Kaiser Family Foundation  on March 9, 2022, overall, Asian (59%) and White (54%) people had the highest shares of eligible people who had received a booster dose, while less than half of Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander (46%), AI/AN (45%), Black (44%) and Hispanic (40%) people had received a booster shot.

During this year’s observance, HHS OMH also will promote the current CDC recommendations for community efforts to prevent COVID-19 infections. In addition, the Give Your Community a Boost! theme supports the U.S. Surgeon General’s recommendations on combating COVID-19 and vaccine misinformation at the individual, community, and organizational levels.

During April, HHS OMH invites individuals, community-based organizations, federal, state, and local governments, and other public and private entities to share how they are boosting their communities by encouraging COVID-19 vaccines and boosters and other efforts to advance health equity.

Visit the National Minority Health Month 2022 website in English and Spanish to find resources, events, shareable social media messages, graphics, and information about Give Your Community a Boost!

Follow HHS OMH on Twitter (@MinorityHealth  and @OMH_Espanol ), Facebook , Instagram , and YouTube .

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National Minority Health Month is celebrated every year in April to build awareness about the disproportionate burden of premature death and illness in racial and ethnic minority populations and encourages action through health education, early detection, and control of disease complications.

In 2002, National Minority Health Month received support from the U.S. Congress with a concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 388) that “a National Minority Health and Health Disparities Month should be established to promote educational efforts on the health problems currently facing minorities and other health disparity populations.” The resolution encouraged “all health organizations and Americans to conduct appropriate programs and activities to promote healthfulness in minority and other health disparity communities.”

The HHS Office of Minority Health (OMH) is dedicated to improving the health of racial and ethnic minority populations through the development of health policies and programs that will help eliminate health disparities. For more information about OMH, visit www.minorityhealth.hhs.<.