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By Greta Noble
For three years, I have worked with a community of women who historically have been
marginalized within the city of Louisville, KY. The female workers of Churchill Downs are
Latina immigrants who face enormous challenges to their medical care due to a lack of
insurance, low income, and a language barrier. This past year at the Kentucky Racing Health
Servings Center, a clinic that serves these women where I work as a Spanish interpreter, I
identified a barrier to their healthcare and well-being: Hispanic women are 40% more likely than
caucasian women to develop cervical cancer from HPV, yet not one of our patients had received
the HPV vaccination. To receive the three-part vaccination, the women must walk nearly a mile
and take two buses during work hours. They must also pay $300 for each of the injections. While
this fee can be reimbursed, many of our patients are simply unable to pay it in the first place.
Working alongside my supervisors, both within my job at the clinic and in my scholarship
program, I was able to leverage funding from the Humana Foundation through the McConnell
Foundation to create a free clinic for the women we serve that provides not only the Gardasil
vaccination but HPV and Hepatitis C testing, as well as sexual health education.
Health disparities often stem from systemic issues, and lead to unequal health outcomes
among different population groups by intensifying a lack of transparency in care for a patient.
This is why over the course of the Fall semester over 25 McConnell Scholars have participated in
the administration of the Gardasil-9 vaccination as a part of the joint collaboration free
vaccination clinic that we have created. The project has created an opportunity to not only
provide a desperately needed service to a population that resides less than a mile from the doors
of the McConnell Center but also engage with a diverse population and learn more about the
communities within Louisville. Moving forward the clinic has applied for government funding in
order to be able to provide vaccinations to patients free of charge for years to come.
In the last three years, the McConnell Scholars Program has provided me opportunity
after opportunity to enhance my education and brighten my future. This project felt like the
perfect chance to do the same for a community that I have gotten to know so well throughout my
college years. If there is a way I can leave a mark on the McConnell Scholars Program, I hope
that it will be this project and that scholar participation will continue for years to come.
Greta Noble is a McConnell Scholar in the class of 2025. She is studying biology, environmental science, political science, and Spanish