Ohio Medicaid members are receiving vaccine doses at half the state's overall rate due to access barriers, according to the Dayton Daily News and data from the Ohio Department of Medicaid.
Surveys conducted throughout the pandemic showed that state Medicaid members were 20 percent more likely to socially distance and wear masks than non-Medicaid members, indicating the low rate is not due to vaccine resistance.
"There's no question this is a difference between those who are impoverished and those who are not," Mary Applegate, MD, a medical director at the Department of Medicaid, told the publication. "We saw more of the middle and upper classes able to drive to drive-thrus, get time off work, get childcare."
In some neighborhoods with the state's highest poverty rates, fewer than 10 percent of Medicaid members are vaccinated, the article said.