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This review sets out key considerations for improving vaccine equity – as well as broader health equity – in the North West London (NWL) borough of Ealing. It foregrounds the political, economic and social dynamics which have perpetuated health inequalities during and prior to COVID-19, and how they have manifested to shape COVID-19 vaccine accessibility and uptake among different social groups. It also highlights how local actors have sought to address these inequalities. By bringing together data and insights from existing social science research and consultations with people involved in local COVID-19 vaccination efforts (in local authorities, the NHS and community groups), we point to ways local authorities and healthcare providers, in collaboration with local people and organisations, can support vaccine equity – and health equity more broadly – now, and into the future. Critical to this are further efforts to integrate sensitivity to context, sustain collaborative working, build trust and meaningfully engage citizens (especially vulnerable groups), and support a robust civil society. The review begins with summary key considerations for operational actors. This review was produced by SSHAP in collaboration with Ealing Council. It was authored by Tabitha Hrynick and Santiago Ripoll, and reviewed by Maddy Gupta-Wright, Ellen Schwartz, and Nikita Simpson. It is the responsibility of SSHAP

As the unequal impact of the COVID-19 pandemic continues, there is a need to robustly support vulnerable communities and bolster ‘community resilience.’ A community resilience approach means to work in partnership with communities and strengthen their capacities to mitigate the impact of the pandemic, including its social and economic fallout. However, this is not resilience which returns the status quo. This moment demands transformative change in which inequalities are tackled and socioeconomic conditions are improved. While a community resilience approach is relatively new to epidemic preparedness and response, it frames epidemic shocks more holistically and from the perspective of a whole system. While epidemic response often focuses on mitigating vulnerabilities, there is an opportunity to use a resilience framework to build existing capacities to manage health, social, psychosocial, and economic impacts of an epidemic. This makes a resilience approach more localised, adaptable, and sustainable in the long-term, which are key tenets of an epidemic response informed by social science. This brief presents considerations for how health and humanitarian practitioners can support communities to respond to and recover from COVID-19 using a community resilience approach. This brief was developed for SSHAP by IDS (led by Megan Schmidt-Sane with Tabitha Hrynick) with Anthrologica (Eva Niederberger).

The heterogeneous epidemiological picture for COVID-19 in Africa continues to generate debate. Modelling projections raise speculation about the phases and trends of SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks across the continent and how these differ from outbreaks elsewhere.[1–4][1] Continental efforts drew praise in