Incident 104: California's Algorithm Considered ZIP Codes in Vaccine Distribution, Allegedly Excluding Low-Income Neighborhoods and Communities of Color
Description: California's vaccine-distribution algorithm used ZIP codes as opposed to census tracts in its decision-making, which critics said undermined equity and access for vulnerable communities who are largely low-income, underserved neighborhoods with low Healthy Places Index scores.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: Blue Shield of California developed an AI system deployed by California Department of Public Health, which harmed California low-income neighborhoods and California communities of color.
Incident Stats
Incident ID
104
Report Count
1
Incident Date
2021-02-12
Editors
Sean McGregor, Khoa Lam
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
As most Californians become eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, California is rightly centering equity in distributing doses to communities that have been hardest hit. But our analysis of the state’s most recent plans suggests that the …
Variants
A "variant" is an incident that shares the same causative factors, produces similar harms, and involves the same intelligent systems as a known AI incident. Rather than index variants as entirely separate incidents, we list variations of incidents under the first similar incident submitted to the database. Unlike other submission types to the incident database, variants are not required to have reporting in evidence external to the Incident Database. Learn more from the research paper.
