United Health Foundation announced more than $3 million in grant money for Children’s National Hospital over three years for a mobile clinic to help D.C. students in Wards 7 and 8.
The money will help bring public school nurses and community health workers into neighborhoods that face high rates of child poverty, asthma, obesity and lower rates of vaccination.
Pediatrician Dr. Hope Rhodes says a mobile clinic is especially important right now with so many children behind on their routine immunizations because of the pandemic.
“It is very important that we continue to keep our kids up to date with their vaccines, so that going forward we do not see an outbreak of measles or chicken pox or whooping cough or another infectious disease that is completely preventable,” Rhodes said.
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The mobile clinic also will help in the rollout of Pfizer’s vaccine for children ages 5 to 11, bringing access to the coronavirus shot in areas with the greatest need.
Across all of D.C., almost 50 percent of children ages 12 to 15 are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, but that number drops to 27 percent in Ward 7 and 20 percent in Ward 8 for children in that same age group.
