African American/Black communities have been at a disportionately higher risk of various social, health, and racial disparities. These disparities exist due to factors such as limited access to resources, financial instability, reduced access to care, discrimination due to their race, lack of trust on political leaders, and several other factors. With the current onset of the COVID-19 pandemic many of these disparities have been on the rise and further segregating the African American/Black communities in the health care system.

In order to systematically gage and come up with some solutions to bridge the gap between such disparities and prevention plans, a community based organization Colorado Black Health Collaborative wanted to explore the effects of this pandemic on such disparities in the state of Colorado by providing a survey to their directory members as well as other community members. The survey focused on themes including but not limited to general demographics, vulnerability to the COVID-19, impact on testing, vaccine, exposure, social distancing, mental health, physical health, financial impact, employment changes, and public transportation. It had 33 questions; 2 free responses, 1 Likert scale, 28 Multiple choices, and 2 check the boxes. It was in the field from 07/06/2020 – 09/02/2020. A total of 134 responses were analyzed.

Some of the key findings include: 78.4% of respondents identified as Black American, 40.9% have pre- existing conditions such as asthma, diabetes, hypertension, and obesity, 88% think that African Americans/ Blacks are more impacted by COVID-19 than any other group, 74.6% do not trust the law enforcement on fairly and equally enforcing rules about social distancing and wearing masks. Future steps include but are not limited to identifying assets in the community to help close the gap for concerns that were shown through this survey, creating a phone interview method for people who do not have access to the internet, to utilize the information obtained to inform awareness and educational campaigns and to create a resource hub for the community.