Vaccinating High-Risk Congregate Populations

About the Program

Category: Health (Best in Category)

Year: 2021

In the time of a global pandemic, some of the most high-risk populations were getting left behind all over the world. With Arizona being one of the top locations for retirees to relocate to, Maricopa County Department of Public Health (MCDPH) recognized the importance of getting their large population within high-risk congregate settings vaccinated as soon as possible. The difficulty was locating all the facilities, number of residents, finding vendors to administer the vaccine at the facilities, and tracking the progress. Through a collaborative effort between Maricopa County GIS and Maricopa County Public Health, a new geography-based (GIS) process was born. The GIS team was able to take all the data compiled by Public Health and build a map application showing where all the facilities and residents resided within the county that Vendors could view and select facilities from. The outcome was a quick and efficient means to vaccinate all 1400 facilities. The program has been so successful it has been able to expand to other types of facilities and has many use cases for the future.