The AAMC submitted comments on Sept. 4 to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) in response to a request for public comment on the Discussion Draft of the Preliminary Framework for Equitable Allocation of COVID-19 Vaccine, released Sept. 1.
NASEM requested comments from stakeholders on the preliminary framework developed by a committee formed at the request of the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The draft outlines principles, goals, and criteria for determining an equitable four-phase allocation framework.
In its comments, the AAMC praised the emphasis on mitigating inequities in vaccine access and the committee’s consideration of implementation strategy and ethics in the development of the framework. The AAMC recommended that the committee include:
- Evidence-based strategies and resources for federal, state, and local public health and health care organizations to engage communities, build trust, and create partnerships and bidirectional communication.
- Ethical rationales for and clearer definitions of the groups and roles included in each phase to facilitate consistent application of the allocation framework across states and communities.
- Specific data fields for race and ethnicity, age, gender, and social status — and their potential sources to ensure implementation fidelity.
The AAMC also encouraged NASEM to clearly articulate in its final report to the public, in a standalone section, why racial and ethnic minority communities are not considered a priority group in and of themselves.