The HHS Office of Minority Health announced a $40 million initiative with the Morehouse School of Medicine to fight COVID-19 in racial and ethnic minority, rural and socially vulnerable communities. The Morehouse School of Medicine will lead the initiative and coordinate a strategic network of national, state and local organizations to deliver COVID-19-related information to communities hardest hit by the pandemic.

The initiative – called the National Infrastructure for Mitigating the Impact of COVID-19 within Racial and Ethnic Minority Communities (NIMIC) – is a three-year project designed to work with community-based organizations to deliver education and information on resources to help fight the pandemic. The information network will strengthen efforts to link communities to COVID-19 testing, healthcare and social services and to best share and implement effective response, recovery and resilience strategies. Several research studies, including early analysis from NJHA’s Center for Health Analytics, Research and Transformation, have found disparate impacts of COVID-19 on communities of color.