Edmontonians living in different areas of the city are getting vaccinated at different rates, according to new data from Alberta Health Services (AHS).
AHS recently began publishing data showing how many doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in each "local geographic area." These are artificial boundaries set up by AHS for planning health services, and do not line up with Edmonton's neighbourhood boundaries.
This chart shows the percentage of the population within each local geographic area in Edmonton, as well as a few other urban centres in the region, that have received at least one dose of the vaccine. As of May 15, Abbottsfield residents are less than two-thirds as likely to be partially vaccinated as Twin Brooks residents, because only 37.1% of the population there has received at least one dose, compared to 56.2%.
There are many factors that could influence why one area is getting vaccinated slower than another. A higher concentration of clinics and pharmacies offering the vaccine would lower wait times for nearby residents and allow for easier access, as would being closer to the mass vaccination site at the Edmonton Expo Centre. The median age of the area would also have an effect, since older age groups have been eligible to receive the vaccine in Alberta for a longer period of time.
Dr. Gabriel Fabreau, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Calgary, says that a large part of the inequity has to do with median income. Fabreau told CTV News last week that Edmonton's lower income areas tend to be getting vaccinated slower than more affluent areas. He explained that lower-income neighbourhoods face more barriers to accessing vaccines, like transportation, internet literacy, and time, and are more vulnerable to the virus as a result.
"We've essentially set up a vaccine hunger games," he said.
When compared to federal census data from 2016 (the most recent year available) that shows median income by neighbourhood, the lower vaccination rates line up with low-income areas in many cases. The neighbourhood of Abbottsfield, which falls within the local geographic area, has one of the highest rates of low-income households in the city, at 28.3%. Meanwhile, only 6.1% of households in Twin Brooks are low-income.
Many of the city's other low-income neighbourhoods, such as Queen Mary Park, Boyle Street, and McCauley fall within the area of Eastwood, which has the fourth lowest percentage of vaccinations in the city at 41.9%. Belgravia, Walterdale, and Grandview Heights — some of the neighbourhoods with the highest incomes — are situated mostly inside the area of Bonnie Doon, which is second highest in vaccinations at 53.1%.