Apr 06, 2025

Dr. Charles Olomofe, visiting assistant professor of Public Health, had an abstract accepted for poster presentation at the annual conference of the Society for Epidemiologic Research (SER), in Boston, Massachusetts, in June.

Olomofe will give a poster presentation of his abstract titled “Assessing the Correlates and Implications for Policy of COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake and Hesitancy Among People Living With HIV/AIDS in Northeast Tennessee."

In the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, policies such as face mask mandates, restrictions of movement, social distancing, and others were instituted. These policies were criticized for disrupting everyday life, not being sustainable considering their economic impacts, and for having guarded effectiveness at curtailing the virus.

On the one hand, there is evidence that COVID-19 vaccines were very effective against symptomatic infection and the prevention of infection spread with little or no disruption to human lives. On the other hand, higher COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among people living with HIV/AIDS undermined the effectiveness of the vaccination policy.

This research explored the COVID-19 vaccination policy dynamics using primary data collection and analysis of people living with HIV/AIDS who are receiving care at the Ryan White HIV clinic in Johnson City, Tennessee. The conference details may be found here: https://epiresearch.org/annual-meeting/2025-meeting/