Henna Budhwani, Ph.D., will study COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among African American and Black young adults in the Southern United States.
(Photo by: Beau Gustavson)A University of Alabama at Birmingham researcher was recently awarded an R01 grant for more than $3 million by the National Institute of Minority Health Disparities — one of five awards made by the NIMHD to address vaccine hesitancy, uptake and implementation among populations who experience health disparities.
Henna Budhwani, Ph.D., MPH, assistant professor in the School of Public Health, and her co-principal investigator, Lisa B. Hightow-Weidman, M.D., MPH, a professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, received the grant.
Their study, “A Multidimensional Digital Approach to Address Vaccine Hesitancy and Increase COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake among African American Young Adults in the South,” leverages the existing infrastructure of the Adolescent Medicine Trials Network for HIV/AIDS Interventions. It employs innovative strategies, such as choose-your-own-adventure journeys, digital storytelling and youth-friendly modalities developed in collaboration with community experts and a youth advisory board, to adapt an HIV disclosure digital health intervention to address COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy.
According to Budhwani, the politicizing of COVID-19 and historic mistreatment of African American and Black populations, particularly in the Southern United States, has exacerbated medical mistrust and vaccine skepticism.
“We cannot address vaccine hesitancy without critically examining the effects of social structures,” Budhwani said. “Insufficient health care access in rural America, inaccessible public health messaging, historic mistreatment of African American and Black people, and politicalizing COVID-19 prevention strategies have exacerbated distrust.”
As a health equity scholar, Budhwani conducts studies to address the causes and consequences of health disparities among stigmatized populations that experience adverse health outcomes in resource-constrained settings. Her research is informed by sociological constructs, guided by human rights frameworks, and adopts a multidimensional view of addressing public health and clinical care inequities. In addition to being a faculty member in UAB’s School of Public Health, Budhwani is a visiting professor with the University of California San Francisco Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, and is affiliated faculty with the Florida State University Center for Translational Behavioral Science and the University of Alabama Center for Youth Development and Intervention.
Click here to read more about the five high-priority awards made by the NIMHD to address vaccine hesitancy.