In June of his year, San Mateo County Health deployed a micro-targeted strategy to make pathways to a COVID-19 vaccine more accessible to under-reached residents living in lower-resourced communities that have borne the greatest impact of the pandemic. The strategy invites community organizations, individuals, and entities to submit a form requesting that a Pop-up vaccine site be located in their neighborhood.  The form can be located on the County’s website at the link below:

Interested in Bringing a Vaccine Event to Your Organization?

Complete this form to partner with San Mateo County Health to bring the COVID-19 vaccine to your organization/location.

This strategy provides residents with an opportunity to serve as trusted messengers that can reach members of their community who need support accessing a vaccine at convenient times and locations where they live, work, worship, and play.  To date, the countywide vaccination efforts have successfully reached 92.7% of eligible residents, and the County remains committed to achieving at least 80% vaccination in every community for all eligible residents. Since the launch of this strategy, coordinated education, outreach, and Pop-up Vaccine events have generated a total of 70 requests that have resulted in 62 clinics administering over 1410 doses of vaccine in our most vulnerable communities.  The Pop-up Vaccine events have played a significant role in raising the vaccination coverage to over 80% in North Fair Oaks and East Palo Alto by the end of August–both of which had vaccination coverage hovering around 60% at the end of June.  Below is a map depicting the distribution of vaccine doses at Pop-up Vaccine events throughout the county, as of 9/10/2021.

Pop-up Vaccine events have been hosted by faith-based organizations, youth centers, schools, food distribution sites, parks, community festivals, worksites, local governmental organizations, and many others. Efforts utilizing this strategy continue to reduce the gap as we identify pathways to increase vaccination coverage within our priority race/ethnicity communities of Latinx, African Americans, and Pacific Islanders where vaccine coverage lags behind the countywide coverage.