The Pop-Up Vaccine Clinic of the Yale Neighborhood Health Project, or NHP, is redefining vaccine care and access in New Haven. 

Based out of the School of Nursing, the clinic annually provides free vaccines to uninsured and under-insured individuals in New Haven during October. This year, in addition to administering flu vaccines, they supplied COVID-19 vaccines to New Haveners for the first time. The clinic has provided more than 130 vaccines over five Saturdays of the month. 

“Vaccine inequities are a part of the troubling, long-standing social determinants of disparate and inequitable health,” Dr. Jeffery Bender, professor of cardiovascular medicine at the School of Medicine and medical advisor of NHP, told the News. “However, NHP provides a way for us to reduce those inequities through the vaccine clinic. People often have questions about the vaccine like, do you think this is important, are the vaccines safe? The nursing students, as well as student volunteers, can spend time communicating and answering their questions, providing vaccine education and access.”

The hosts of the vaccine clinic

The vaccine clinic is part of the broader organization of the NHP, a graduate student-run clinic. Created in 2003, the clinic offers a range of free services to the New Haven community, from blood pressure checks and healthcare counseling to providing sexual health supplies like menstrual products. The clinic also serves as an education center for community members, providing resources and information for where and how to access further medical care.

NHP is directed and staffed by graduate students from the School of Medicine, School of Nursing, School of Public Health and the Physician Associate Program. Advisors from the School of Nursing and School of Medicine oversee the development of the clinic; at least one advisor is present at NHP events. However, according to Bender, the students are the operators and drivers of the clinic. There’s an emphasis on recruiting as many different voices in health as possible with the inclusion of students with different health interests. According to Ryan Sutherland SPH ’20 MED ’26, NHP’s community outreach director, this approach creates different opportunities for specialized information. 

“Every good health decision starts with a conversation,” Sutherland told the News. “A lot of these patients don’t really want to come to clinics. They may have an issue with transportation. They might have an issue with discrimination. Our model is meeting individuals in their community where they need care the most.” 

One of the impactful community partnerships that NHP has formed has been with Loaves and Fishes, an organization dedicated to providing an equitable food system in New Haven. The organization provides culturally appropriate and nutritious foods, clothing and access to various services. Loaves and Fishes runs its operations every Saturday, including during the holidays, between 8 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. at the Episcopal Church of St. Paul and St. James.  

Excluding holidays and school breaks, the NHP holds its services at the church at the same time Loaves and Fishes run their operations. According to Sutherland, this is because Loaves and Fishes is an established organization that already knows how to reach community members. Many of the individuals who come to Loaves and Fishes don’t have insurance for health care and don’t have routine care with primary care physicians. NHP sees it as an opportunity to go to where patients are already present to provide education and health advice.

According to Lorrice Grant, the executive director of Loaves and Fishes, the partnership with NHP is wonderful because people come for food and clothes and leave with healthcare advice and connections to health resources. 

“They already have a relationship with people at Loaves and Fishes,” Grant told the News. “They trust us, so therefore they start to develop a trust with medical providers. A lot of people are afraid to go to the doctors, but because NHP is right in the space that they’re already familiar with, people’s guard is down and they’re already comfortable, and they’ll say, ‘Yeah, I’ll let you test my blood pressure, or, you know what, I do need COVID vaccine or a flu shot’”

As of 2022, 40 percent of New Haven residents have decided to remain unvaccinated as a result of misinformation. According to Sutherland, the vaccine misinformation is partly due to the historical legacies of racial discrimination in healthcare that have left many individuals not trusting healthcare systems. He believes that the NHP is helping to create a new health legacy in New Haven by providing thoughtful community collaborations that are consistent with what the community needs. 

Additionally, Christina Pantzer NUR ’25, the co-director of NHP’s vaccine clinic, told the News that the privilege of attending and being a part of an institution like Yale with its resources and education comes with the need to give back. This allows students like Pantzer to apply what they learn in the classroom and build healthier relationships with the New Haven community.

“NHP provides people with science-based evidence and knowledge about vaccines, disease, healthcare and even nutrition,” Grant said. “This is important because sometimes people don’t have time to kind of go research those things on their own. Now, they will take good information back home with them, rather than things that they hear on social media or the news or in passing or from their friends because it’s a place where they already feel like they can trust people.”

What the vaccine clinic provides

The vaccine pop-up clinic, held only in October, is one of the many NHP services provided at Loaves and Fishes. According to Pantzer, holding the clinic in October works because it’s late enough for volunteers to get settled into the semester and early enough before the winter. This best protects individuals from the peak of flu and COVID-19 season in the winter.

Led by Pantzer and Ezra Otto NUR ’26, the vaccine clinic usually employs nursing students to volunteer at the vaccine clinic. According to Sutherland, this is because nursing students are provided with a National Provider Identifier that certifies them to provide vaccines.

“Nurses are often overlooked as leaders in the healthcare system,” Pantzer said. “The nursing perspective is valuable because we’re trained to view someone as a holistic person with social, environmental and developmental factors. Nurses are also resourceful because we’re used to working in care settings and we can apply what we know in care to the vaccine clinic.”

The clinic accesses the vaccines through the Connecticut Department of Public Health, which allows medical institutions to provide vaccines to uninsured or underinsured individuals. The clinic orders the vaccines from a government portal and they are usually stored at the Yale Health Pharmacy. According to Pantzer, the clinic uses the NHP budget to then buy other necessary supplies for the day, including hand sanitizer, alcohol swabs and needles.

NHP volunteers set up tables in the church’s basement at 7:30 am. For the vaccine clinic, there’s one table for admitting the COVID-19 vaccine and another table for the flu vaccine. Two nursing students are stationed at each table with Pantzer and Otto supervising proceedings. Before New Haveners can get in line for food and clothing, there are various tables with health services, including the vaccine clinic. 

When an individual wants to get a vaccine shot, the volunteers for the vaccine usually ask about their insurance status. After confirming their eligibility, the volunteers will provide them with a screening form in either English or Spanish and information about the vaccine. The information includes the side effects and the procedure of providing a vaccine. 

According to Pantzer, the COVID-19 vaccination in particular should occur yearly because COVID-19 still poses a direct threat to health. Some people do not get the vaccine and are completely fine. But for community health as a whole, unvaccinated individuals can raise the risk of infection for vaccinated vulnerable populations, including the immunocompromised. However, Pantzer believes that individuals should know about the unlikely yet unpleasant reactions to the vaccine, from fever to pain in the arm. 

“We never say, ‘You have to get it or use scare tactics or anything like that,’” Pantzer said. “We’ll just say, ‘This is what the CDC recommends. It’s to prevent the COVID infection. These are symptoms that can happen if you get COVID, this is why we recommend the vaccine.’ But if they say no, we don’t push too hard after that.”

According to Pantzer, the reason why the clinic, and NHP as a whole, decide to focus on uninsured and underinsured individuals is because they have the hardest time accessing healthcare services, and paying out of pocket could mean more than $100 for each vaccine. This can create a financial burden that makes individuals unable and not interested in receiving care. 

Additionally, being able to speak Spanish breaks the language barrier that leaves many individuals on the periphery of medical care. Having a Spanish-speaking provider allows some individuals to receive vaccine education in their own language and be encouraged to take it since they know more about it. 

“[Non-English-speaking] populations often have less trust in the healthcare system because of the history of not being treated as well within the healthcare system, or not feeling understood, or having difficulty communicating within the healthcare system,” Pantzer said. “If you don’t speak English, it’s probably a lot more difficult to understand different factors of being enrolled in a new healthcare system.”

This semester has been a memorable one for the clinic, as they were able to encourage many people to take the COVID-19 vaccine for the first time. According to Pantzer, through constant interaction and encouragement, many individuals who didn’t know much about the vaccine were open to learning more and receiving one. 

This year, the NHP administered 133 vaccines, averaging around 15 to 20 vaccine provisions every Saturday. In the future, Pantzer hopes that the vaccine clinic will continue to thrive as it will be passed down to the next cohort of directors and volunteers in 2025. Through continued support from Loaves and Fishes, the Connecticut Department of Public Health and Yale Health Pharmacy, the vaccine clinic will continue to provide an even greater impact in the New Haven community.

Loaves and Fishes is located at 57 Olive St.