Capacity-Building Grants for Faculty Mentors
Capacity-Building Grant: Kristin Hedges
As an applied medical anthropologist, my primary research interests focus on using community-based research approaches to understand local cultural construction of health, illness, and risk. Ongoing projects in which students have been involved include an ethnobotany project in Kenya documenting Maasai traditional medicine and a substance use project here on GVSU campus documenting student perspectives.
One of my new research projects investigates Vaccine Confidence in West Michigan. Since the start of the global COVID-19 pandemic vaccines have been recognized as an important tool for ending the global health emergency. The reality is that vaccination campaigns have always been a project of public cooperation. Therefore, a vaccine can only be as effective as the public willingness to participate and the community’s ability to access the resource. The purpose of this project is to conduct individual open-ended interviews, via Zoom, among adults living in West Michigan to understand factors influencing vaccine hesitancy. The goal of the interviews is to understand community members perspectives on vaccines and concerns about vaccination. This data will be used to tailor messaging to better answer community members questions and concerns about vaccines. There are a number of different student research opportunities available on this project. If interested, please contact Dr. Kristin Hedges ([email protected] ) to set up a meeting.
Share this spotlight
Return to the listing of capacity-building grants for faculty mentors.