Infectious Disease

Health care worker taking a patient's blood pressure in a clinic

Should I Take the COVID Vaccine as a Minority?

Anita Pandit, MS ’16

How are managing mental health and receiving a COVID vaccine similar? They both require minorities to have some level of trust in health sciences and the people administering their health care. Alum Anita Pandit walks us through the good and the bad reasons not getting a vaccine—and why she will be getting one.

Microscopic image of Ebola virus

Why Africa Still Has Ebola Outbreaks

Kennedy DuBose, Julia Duffy, Sania Farooq, Sucaad Mohamud, and Maggie Sanders

Ebola virus disease outbreaks have occurred periodically in regions of west and sub-Saharan Africa since 1976. By identifying the social and environmental issues surrounding EVD’s continuous resurgence, the world can mount better, more lasting interventions to avoid these detrimental outbreaks.

Microscopic image of the AIDS virus

When the HIV/AIDS Epidemic Meets COVID-19

Claire Volkert, Jonethan James, Kourtney Young, Noreen Khan, Sydney Gurecki, and Bianca Ghita

The HIV/AIDS epidemic exposed how structural factors place individuals at an increased risk for infection, something we are seeing again today with COVID-19. Can lessons learned from the HIV epidemic help prevent us from making the same mistakes today?

Microscopic image of the poliovirus

What the Polio Epidemic Can Teach Us about Vaccine Hesitancy

Samantha Kasselman, Ryan Olivier, Hadley Wallace, Claire Gleason, and Kerry Lindquist

Well before the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccine hesitancy resulted in lower immunization coverage for many vaccine-preventable diseases. Vaccine hesitancy around one of those diseases—polio—can shed light on the challenges we now face with the COVID-19 vaccine.

Graphic showing Benefit–Risk Analysis of Health Benefits versus Excess Risk of SARS-CoV-2 Infection

Outbreaks Inevitable as Childhood Vaccination Rates Decrease

Sarah Javaid and Giovanna Buttazzoni

COVID-19 poses unique challenges to vaccination programs, with children around the world going unvaccinated for a variety of reasons. To prevent childhood deaths and disease spread due to decreased vaccination coverage, immunization programs must continue during the pandemic.

Katherine Hoffman at her desk in the biostatistics and epidemiology division at Weill Cornell Medicine.

On the Sidelines: New York's COVID-19 Outbreak from the Eyes of a Biostatistician

Katherine Hoffman, MS ’18

It's March. An early-career biostatistician at a large medical facility, alum Katherine Hoffman is living through New York City’s explosive COVID-19 outbreak. As the statistician for a pulmonary and critical care team, she is quickly pulled into COVID-19 work. Her hospital is running out of ventilators. She is told to drop all other research projects for COVID-19 work. This is her story.