ACADEMIA Letters
US-Mexico Transborder Collaboration: COVID-19
Vaccines in Arms Across Borders
Cecilia Rosales, University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public
Health
Tina Fingesi, University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public
Health
Daniel Derksen, University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public
Health
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic revealed widening health disparities and disproportionate adverse
health outcomes in terms of transmission, hospitalizations, morbidity, and mortality among
Arizona’s rural, Latino, immigrant, and elderly populations. Unfortunately, these are the very
populations that had much lower rates of being vaccinated in the early weeks of Arizona’s
COVID-19 vaccination roll. To address these alarming health disparities, the leadership of
the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center, through our Primary Prevention Mobile
Health Unit (MHU)-established a bold new initiative tagged: Mobile Outreach Vaccination
& Education for Underserved Populations (MOVE-UP) in Arizona to expedite vaccinations
to vulnerable and hard-to-reach individuals within the state; thereby improving COVID-19
vaccination uptake and reducing disparities in cases and mortality rates. The MHUs vacci-
nation program has been an opportunity to contribute meaningfully during an unprecedented
global health crisis as we are experiencing since the onset of COVID-19 pandemic.
Academia Letters, December 2021
Corresponding Author: Cecilia Rosales, crosales@arizona.edu
Citation: Rosales, C., Fingesi, T., Derksen, D. (2021). US-Mexico Transborder Collaboration: COVID-19
Vaccines in Arms Across Borders. Academia Letters, Article 4484. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL4484.
1
©2021 by the authors — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0