COVID-19 Vaccine Community Outreach Clinics

A community-centred approach to vaccine delivery that reached meat processing workers, newcomers, and marginalized communities across Alberta.

The challenge

During the COVID-19 pandemic, marginalized immigrant communities — including meat processing plant workers who had suffered some of Canada's largest outbreaks — faced compounded barriers to vaccination: language, housing, work schedules, and mistrust of institutional settings. Standard clinics did not meet those needs.

A different kind of vaccine clinic

MH2C partnered with public-health authorities, primary care providers, settlement agencies, and Community Scholars to build clinics designed around the people we wanted to reach. Clinics ran extended hours, were staffed with multilingual interpreters and trusted community members, and were located in community spaces — not hospitals.

Who we worked with

• Alberta Health Services
• City of Calgary
• Primary care providers
• Alberta International Medical Graduates Association (AIMGA)
• Settlement agencies
• Community Scholars

The results

What we learned

Vaccination rates above 80% in populations that conventional approaches had missed were not the result of better messaging — they were the result of trust, location, and language. Community-centred care is public-health infrastructure, not outreach.

Publications

• Holdbrook et al., "Vaccines for all: A formative evaluation of a multistakeholder community-engaged COVID-19 vaccine outreach clinic for migrant communities."
  Elsevier · March 26, 2023
• Fabreau et al., "Vaccines alone will not prevent COVID-19 outbreaks among migrant workers — the example of meat processing plants."
  Clinical Microbiology and Infection · February 18, 2022

Multilingual vaccine bulletins

Plain-language bulletins on COVID-19 vaccine science, safety, and access — produced for the outreach clinics and translated for newcomer communities. Each bulletin is available in 15 languages: English, Amharic, Arabic, Bengali, Chinese (Simplified & Traditional), Farsi, French, Hindi, Punjabi, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Tamil, Tigrinya, Urdu.

• 1
  What you need to know about the COVID-19 vaccines

  View bulletin →
• 2
  How did we get COVID-19 vaccines so fast?

  View bulletin →
• 3
  Who were the COVID-19 vaccines tested on?

  View bulletin →
• 4
  Trusted answers to your COVID-19 vaccine questions

  View bulletin →
• 5
  Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines: is there a difference?

  View bulletin →

Media coverage

The program was covered by Calgary Herald, CBC News, The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Global News between 2021 and 2022.

• Pop-up 'vaccine rodeo' aims to combat disparities in northeast Calgary
• Alberta's immunization plan needs to bring vaccine to communities facing barriers, doctors say
• Alberta advisory panel calls for pop-up clinics in communities with barriers to vaccines
• Majority of Alberta meat-packing workers have been vaccinated against COVID-19
• Cargill clinic immunizes 1,638 workers, a 'bright spot of hope' in COVID storm
• Meatpacking workers 'systemically ignored,' says doctor as Alberta delays Cargill vaccine clinic
• Canada's first major workplace COVID vaccination clinic could be the model for large employers across Canada
• Plans underway for COVID-19 vaccination clinic at southern Alberta meat-packing plant
• Alberta forms committee to better protect essential workers