With a long awaited COVID-19 vaccine potentially coming out within the next few days, local minority leaders say there's a major roadblock in the way for undeserved communities: mistrust in the vaccine.

"When you have a vaccine and a disease where minorities have been disproportionately represented, there's certainty mistrust when you see a vaccine that's sort of been fast tracked," said Dr. Dee Banks, MD, Infectious Disease Specialist.

Mistrust with vaccines dates back to the history of the Tuskegee study where the black community was told they were receiving free healthcare but instead, acting as test subjects for a syphilis vaccination.

"We find out we've been mistreated, exploited and experimented on," said Mike McNair, Editor of the Buckeye Review. 

On Thursday, Governor DeWine announced a new campaign for minority outreach on vaccine education. 21 News reached out to local minority leaders on what they wish to see out of it.

"The more we can educate people to make sure they're armed with the facts is crucial," said Tito Brown, Mayor of Youngstown. Brown said the pandemic affects minority communities greatly and says being a community leader to influence vaccine education is important. 

McNair agrees the campaign should educate minorities with the help of local and statewide leaders.

"If we see people that look like us or people that we can trust, its an endorsement of the vaccine," McNair said. 

"We need to target messengers in various communities, like myself," Banks said. "Those who are trusted voices that look like the individuals that they're talking about."

The Youngstown Public Health Department agrees it's beneficial to use local leaders as influencers. They added the minority outreach campaign should focus on utilizing social media, TV and radio to spread information on the vaccination.

"Maybe a one-pager just to give you information and then maybe giving you a website so that you can go in and do a search yourself," said Leigh Greene, Minority Health Director of Youngstown Public Health Department. 

"We want to live better and well and depend on our leaders, formal and informal at all levels to have that heart of lets really get it done well and we can get it done right," McNair said. 

21 News reached out to the state to find more information about the outreach initiative and they can not provide details at this time.