(Black PR Wire) Today marks the start of National Minority Health Month 2022, a chance for us to spotlight the disproportionate burden of premature death and illness in racial and ethnic minority and American Indian and Alaska Native populations and to encourage action through health education, early detection, and control of disease complications.

The theme for this year's National Minority Health Month is Give Your Community a Boost! This theme focuses on the continued importance of vaccines and boosters as one of the strongest tools we can use to protect communities from COVID-19, which has disproportionately affected racial and ethnic minority and American Indian and Alaska Native populations. During this year’s observance, the HHS Office of Minority Health (OMH) will promote the current CDC recommendations for community efforts to prevent COVID-19 infections and the U.S. Surgeon General's recommendations on combating COVID-19 and vaccine misinformation at the individual, community, and organizational levels. The Give Your Community a Boost! theme also supports the many other efforts happening in communities throughout the country to advance health equity.

You can play an important role in reducing health disparities related to COVID-19 and improving the health of racial and ethnic minority and American Indian and Alaska Native communities. This April and beyond, I invite everyone – individuals, community-based organizations, federal, state, and local governments as well as other public and private entities – to encourage every person who has not received the recommended COVID-19 vaccines and boosters to seek out accurate information to support an informed decision on getting vaccinated and boosted. While vaccinated people can get COVID-19, we know that vaccines and boosters are safe and effective in reducing severe COVID illness, hospitalizations, and death. And that is important for each and every community across the U.S and around the world.

I encourage you to visit the OMH website throughout the month to find ways you can help boost your community and to see how others are doing the same. On the OMH website, you can:

• Download National Minority Health Month graphics and sample messages that you can edit and use on your social media platforms.
• Find resources on COVID-19 and other health topics to share with your organizations, communities, and networks.
• Review OMH's events calendar to find a National Minority Health Month webinar or other virtual event focused on the health of racial and ethnic minority and American Indian and Alaska Native communities.

To amplify our collective impact, be sure to tag @MinorityHealth and use the following hashtags when sharing your National Minority Health Month activities and messages on social media: #BoostYourCommunity, #MinorityHealth, #NMHM2022, and #NMHM22.

I look forward to seeing and hearing what you are doing during National Minority Health Month 2022 to Give Your Community a Boost!