For 20 years, Monica Mitchell's voice has been familiar in Cincinnati neighborhoods, reassuring and confident as she promotes good health at churches and schools and to business leaders and agencies as senior director of community relations at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.
“The voice of African American and other minority professionals is really important because of the trust factor in many cases," Mitchell said. "I bring accurate information to let people know that it’s good to participate in research, it’s good to get a vaccination.
"People do listen."
And for more than a year with the novel coronavirus pandemic, Mitchell's voice has been key to stripping away unease.
"I was reaching out to community members, giving them advice to wear their mask, socially distance," she said.
She worked with the First Ladies for Health in their church events.
But lately, she has included a new dimension within her message: Mitchell has her own COVID-19 story to tell. She is fighting vaccine hesitancy by telling it.
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Mitchell contracted COVID-19 in November after going to Nashville, Tennessee, following the death of her younger sister and niece in a traffic crash.
“I was faced with the decision of traveling," she said. "Especially so close to Thanksgiving, it was a very difficult decision.
“I took every precaution. I wore two masks. I used hand sanitizer, and I socially distanced."
Mitchell thought she might have a greater layer of protection, too: She and her husband, Benjamin Mitchell, a pharmacist, had taken part in a COVID-19 vaccine trial at Cincinnati Children's. Their daughter Melanie, 16, did a child's clinical trial there.
"You don’t know if you get the placebo or the vaccine," Mitchell reminded. “Everybody thought that their arm was hurting.”
The Mitchells all figured they got the vaccine. But as her visit in Nashville neared its end, Mitchell started to feel sick.
"I felt like I was having some cold-like symptoms: sore throat, a runny nose," she said. "I really honestly didn’t think much of it until I got home. My husband was saying, ‘I think you should get tested for COVID.'"
A pediatric psychologist and professor in the division of behavioral medicine and clinical Psychology, Monica Mitchell self-assessed with an online Cincinnati Children's tool that staff are required to complete every day before work. That's when she realized that she really was symptomatic. The next day, she tested positive for COVID-19.
Mitchell stayed home, exhausted and ill, for 10 days. Her husband and daughter never caught the virus. Later, when the family was "unblinded" from the clinical trial, they learned that Monica Mitchell got the placebo, but her daughter and husband were injected with the vaccine.
A Clifton resident who calls Avondale her "second home," Mitchell thought about what she'd do when she was done with her quarantine and back to work.
“At first, I was a little bit hesitant to talk about my story," she said. "Then, I thought, 'This is really the point: my story.'
“I realized I needed to tell my story as a way to build trust for people and to highlight why they have to get the vaccine."
She'd always loved her community work, she said, and the pandemic has emphasized to her how vital it is.
"Monica is a very quiet and gentle but also personable young woman," said Barbara Lynch, director of Christian Education at New Jerusalem Baptist Church in Carthage and a co-chair of the First Ladies for Health.
"She works very gently, but she's very well-spoken.
"She has been very, very active in community education."
Mitchell spoke at the church fairly early during the pandemic and brought in Dr. Robert Frenck, who was heading Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine trials as director of the Gamble Vaccine Research Center at Cincinnati Children's.
And Mitchell spoke more recently at the church, on Easter Sunday. This time she included her own experience with COVID-19.
Her appearances have made an impact on New Jerusalem's members, Lynch said.
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"A lot of people won't take advice from or direction from people that they don't know," she said.
They know Mitchell, Lynch said. And they trust her.
Lynch has heard from church members who at one point thought they would not get a COVID-19 vaccination but changed their minds, because of Mitchell.
Mitchell sees her role as a privilege.
"There's vaccine hesitancy. We need trusted entities in the community," she said. "We need to meet people where they are.”
She said that her Black neighbors relate to her as a member of a church (she attends Crossroads Church Oakley), as a mother, and as a Black psychologist.
“I shared with people the fact that I got COVID, but my family was vaccinated," Mitchell said. "I think giving that example – it highlights the fact that the vaccine works."
Her story also shows that anyone can get COVID-19, she said, "even if you continue trying to do everything right."
Mitchell promises to continue to share her story in Cincinnati's neighborhood churches.
“When I’m in the front rows of church pews on Sundays, I can’t wait to get up and talk to people about the opportunity that our communities have to get vaccinated," Mitchell said. "We have a new opportunity for keeping our families, ourselves and our communities safe.”
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