Date Time Addressing Concerns About COVID-19 Vaccines, Clinical Trials It will require 80-85% vaccine participation for the country to reach population immunity, according to public health experts. Bettina Beech, UH associate provost for strategic initiatives and population health research and College of Medicine professor With COVID-19 surging across the country and more Americans expressing skepticism over the safety and effectiveness of new vaccines, University of Houston researchers are working in underserved communities to identify solutions for vaccine hesitancy, perceptions of new home-based testing and participation in vaccine clinical trials. The work is part of a coordinated outreach effort funded by the National Institutes of Health targeting ethnic and racial minority communities who have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic.