Help your communities get ready for the 2023-2024 flu season and COVID-19
To prepare for this flu season, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Office of Minority Health (CMS OMH) would like to share updated resources with our partners. Throughout the fall, we encourage you to remind your communities that everyone aged 6 months and older should receive updated vaccines to protect themselves from the flu and COVID-19.
Vaccines (also called immunizations or shots) can help prevent people from getting sick, reduce severity and hospitalization in higher risk patients, and reduce life-threatening cases in children. Resources are available with information on both flu and COVID-19 vaccines. Use these resources to help reach people in your community and encourage them to get their updated vaccines.
People from racial and ethnic minority groups are disproportionately impacted by the flu because they are less likely to get the flu vaccine. While almost half of White individuals got a flu vaccine in 2021, only about 1 in 3 American Indian/Alaska Native, Black, and Hispanic individuals got their flu vaccines.
Recent CDC guidance recommends that eligible individuals receive an updated 2023-2024 COVID-19 vaccine to protect against severe illness, hospitalization, long COVID, and evolving variants. The updated vaccine has been shown to boost immunity against current variants and increase antibody responses after infection.
Raising awareness about the importance of vaccines can help promote health for everyone this fall. Here are resources you can use for outreach and to get information on flu and COVID-19 disparities, recommendations, and where to get vaccinated.
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