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Tuskegee is the one-word answer some people give as a reason they’re avoiding COVID-19 vaccines. A new ad campaign launched Wednesday with relatives of men who unwittingly became part of the infamous experiment wants to change minds. Omar Neal, 63, a former mayor of the Alabama town, said he was hesitant at first about the shots. Neal is a nephew of Freddie Lee Tyson, a family man who was among several hundred Black men who decades ago became involved without their consent in the federally backed syphilis study. (Tanner, 6/30)

Ohio GOP Gov. Mike DeWine announced in May that COVID-19 vaccine uptake among Medicaid enrollees was 22 percent, compared with 45 percent of Ohioans overall — despite recent headlines about new incentives to get a shot, including a statewide $1 million lottery. “Obviously, that’s not a number we’re happy with,” said DeWine. “We must get these numbers up. It’s simply unacceptable.” Health inequities were brought to the forefront during the COVID-19 pandemic, amplified by socioeconomic barriers. Now, as the supply of COVID-19 vaccines in the United States remains stable and eligibility has been extended to almost all Americans, local data shows that Medicaid beneficiaries are getting vaccinated at lower rates than the general population. (Raman, 6/30)

The country's healthiest communities also tend to be less hesitant to get vaccinated for COVID-19, according to a new study. U.S. News and the Aetna Foundation released their annual list of the healthiest communities in the nation and found that four of the top 10 communities had a vaccination rate higher than the national rate as of June 4, which was 41.4%. (Minemyer, 6/29)

In the least vaccinated group of counties, many of which are in the South and Central regions of the U.S., less than half as many people have gotten at least one Covid vaccine dose as in the most vaccinated counties in the cities and on the coasts. Those less vaccinated places are not catching up, either. The gap between more- and less-vaccinated counties is expanding, and the trailing counties are far below levels needed to halt future waves of infection. In the bottom fifth of counties — which tend to be more rural, more poor, less educated and more likely to lean politically to the right — only 28% of people have received a first dose of a vaccine, on average, and 24% are fully vaccinated. The slowing rate of new vaccinations shows that despite the Biden administration’s “month of action” to hit its vaccine target of 70% of adults with at least one dose by July 4, some areas are proving hard to reach. (Tartar, Brown and Randall, 6/29)

Public health officials were already struggling with how to persuade coronavirus vaccination holdouts to get the shot. But declining case rates and a highly contagious variant have made their work at once more difficult — and more urgent. In month 16 of the pandemic, local governments have closed most large-scale clinics and are homing in on the hardest-to-reach individuals, with modest goals of vaccinating a handful of people at a time. (Portnoy, 6/29)

Hengchen Dai, an assistant professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, tested the text messages at UCLA's Health system, finding that the message reminders boosted vaccination rates by as much as 3.4 percentage points. Oklahoma launched a statewide texting campaign earlier this month to reach people across the state with details about how to find an appointment near them. The federal government also launched one in May. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment used a different approach: Monday, it called residents who hadn't received the vaccine to remind them to get inoculated and to provide them with information on where to get vaccinated. (Aspegren, 6,30)