Project: The mapping and quantification of potential vaccination sites for the distribution of the COVID-19 Vaccine
Student Researchers: Camryn Tracy, Evyn Whitman, and Matthew Wright
Introduction & Background
“2020 has been a year of obstacles seen by the entire world. Covid-19, a deadly and infectious disease has been exposed to the entire world around March of 2020. The world has been adapting to these times and many people’s lives have changed. Wellspan of York, Pennsylvania is attempting to introduce mass vaccination efforts all through the county. Such efforts will allow most of the population of York County to have the opportunity to become vaccinated for the virus. The goal of the medical facilities is to distribute vaccines at key locations. 75% of the population of York County will be able to be vaccinated in medical facilities, such as hospitals, pharmacies, doctors’ offices, ext. The other 25%, however, must be vaccinated through vaccination events at locations other than the medical facilities. The health of that25% population is as important as those able to be vaccinated in facilities. The number of vaccination sites, as well as the ability to get to said sites, is the main focus of our project. We want to be able to aid in having the vaccine reach as many people as possible so that it is effective in fighting COVID-19.
“The purpose of this project is to help create a plan for mass vaccinations for the COVID-19virus. We want as many people as possible to develop a defense against this pandemic and that begins with getting people treated as soon as possible. We hypothesize that transportation availability, proximity to the location of vaccinations, and income will be key factors in determining whether or not a population is vaccinated, and vaccination events/locations in a centralized spot with multiple available avenues of transport will result in the highest percentage of vaccinations within that population. We will look at how these factors are split up throughout the county and that will have an influence on our study areas. The study area will consist of the entirety of York County. Since we are focused on getting immunization for all, we want to take into account every part of York so we can determine how much reach vaccination efforts will have. York’s neighborhoods are very diverse in regards to how income is spread out across the county. The peak time to receive/distribute vaccinations is between December-march. Typically 75%of vaccinations are distributed/ provided through healthcare providers, retail pharmacies, and doctors’ offices; The other 25% of vaccination distributions are used for ideal locations that are large enough to hold 10 lane car sections. These 10 lane sections would be used to allow those in poverty, who do not have the opportunity to receive vaccinations in the places the other 75% are able to. Bus routes are a key point in transportation for this 25%as well.”
Problem/Issue Statement
“About 25% of the York County population is unvaccinated because of a lack of resources and access to vaccination sites. To ensure the health of that population and York County as a whole, we need to give them easy access to vaccination events; however, the location of such events is critical, as we need to overcome a variety of barriers such as transportation that have prevented this population from being vaccinated.”
Conclusions
“Key takeaways from this project:
1. After gathering our data we concluded that the vaccine sites are relatively close together. Although the bus routes provide access to a lot of these potential distribution sites, this may cause for the vaccine to spread more within those areas.2.
There are some plots of land that are more segregated from the current potential vaccination sights where it may be more beneficial to integrate vaccine sites for those in that area. If vaccination sites are so that people from certain townships only go to vaccine site within their township, this may aid in less traffic and the worry of a surplus of people traveling to certain areas.”
Click here to view the Project Poster
