Building Partnerships Out of Barriers: Lessons Learned From Partnerships Between Centers for Independent Living and Health Departments During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Introduction: People with disabilities were left behind in the beginning of the COVID-19 vaccination rollout. More work needs to be done to connect people with disabilities to public health initiatives. Centers for Independent Living (CILs) are an important and under-utilized community partner for health departments and should be engaged as a trusted source when working to reach people with disabilities and improve access to public health programs and services.

Methods: The National Foundation for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC Foundation), through funding from the CDC, launched the Leveraging CILs to Increase Vaccine Access for People with Disabilities project. The primary goal was to increase accessibility of the COVID-19 vaccination among people with disabilities through (1) outreach and education, (2) service linkage and barrier removal through increasing accessible, (3) widespread education about the vaccine, and (4) improved partnerships between disability-led organizations and local health care providers.

Outputs: A grant program resulted in 39 awards distributed to CILs across the United States totaling $2 955 294.00 between November 2021 and March 2023. The project successfully resulted in reported improvements in partnerships between funded CILs and local health providers and a reported reduction in barriers to accessing vaccinations faced by people with disabilities. A suite of resources was also created to address targeted needs identified throughout partner implementation. Successful outreach to the targeted population resulted in 27 044 consumers being directly reached by CILs and 3 675 655 people reached through communication and outreach activities.

Discussion: Catalytic funding to disability-led organizations during public health emergency response and including people with disabilities as subject matter experts in program design can successfully strengthen access to care via trust building, message dissemination, and partnership. Building the capacity of community-based and consumer-led partners to implement evidence-based public health programming can provide a foundation for improved care for people with disabilities, particularly during an emergency response.