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While Buffalo hasn’t been spared the ravages of the coronavirus pandemic, a partnership between University at Buffalo researchers and community leaders has allowed the community to respond to it more effectively.

As a result, Buffalo is one of few cities nationally that has managed to reduce the rate of COVID-19 fatalities among African Americans.

“We may be the only community in the country that’s been able to mute the impact of this pandemic,” said Kinzer Pointer, pastor of the Liberty Missionary Baptist Church and co-convener of the African American Health Equity Task Force, at a press briefing last fall.

“If you look at national numbers, 34% of COVID-19 deaths are among African Americans,” he said, noting that African Americans make up only 13% of the U.S. population. He then drew a sharp contrast with Erie County, observing that African Americans make up slightly more of the population (14%) yet have accounted for a much smaller proportion of COVID-19 deaths (16%).

“That’s directly attributable to the work we did with our university partners that started in previous years,” said Pointer. “There is a real commitment to shoulder this together and not just watch people die.”

A key contributing factor to the effectiveness of UB’s Community Health Equity Research Institute, which was launched in 2019 to fight racial health disparities in the region, is in the way it was organized.

“UB and the community came together to say we want the community’s needs and desires to be the engine that drives this process,” said , a professor in the School of Architecture and Planning, and the institute’s associate director.

When the pandemic hit the region in March, years of partnership allowed UB to work with the community right away to strategize an effective response. Rapid testing centers were set up, and community members supplied food and other resources to residents. As the pandemic progressed, 15 churches established call centers and worked in neighborhoods to find out what residents needed. Coordinating neighborhood testing, distributing food and PPE, and providing transportation to health care facilities have been critical in protecting communities of color from the most devastating effects of the crisis.

“At the end of the day, the goal is not just to mitigate issues like the pandemic, but to eliminate the conditions that make these populations so vulnerable in the first place,” said Taylor. Those social determinants of health include education, housing, economic development, the environment and the legal system.

Solutions to systemic problems like these won’t occur overnight, acknowledged the institute’s director, , SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. But, he said, “together with our partners, we are confident that our experience so far provides this community with a strong foundation going forward.”