Outreach

Community Education Initiatives

This spring, we will begin outreach activities to clinics (UPMC sites, but also other clinics tending specifically to underserved populations in Pittsburgh), community groups, and local schools based on the educational data visualization materials (see our Data Visualization Competition!). The focus of our educational materials will be on flu vaccine safety/distribution, comparing COVID-19 vaccines to safety/efficacy of other commonly available vaccines, vaccine distribution/adherence, and health disparities during COVID pandemic/hesitations in diverse communities/how healthcare professionals should be addressing it.

Influenzers Vaccine Hotline (coming very soon!)

Dispelling myths and false circulating information about vaccines, as well as making sure our communities are able to make educated and informed vaccination decisions, is crucial to our cause. To aid in this endeavor, we are establishing a volunteer-run hotline where health sciences students and medical care providers can answer questions about vaccinations for the public. The goal is to ensure evidence-based knowledge about vaccinations is understandable and accessible to communities with vast ethnic and socioeconomic differences. 

Community Flu Clinics (coming Fall 2021)

In order to meet community needs, we plan to widen public access to vaccines by establishing local flu clinics. Our health sciences students are formally trained to administer vaccines, and we would like to use this knowledge to increase vaccine availability in Pittsburgh neighborhoods! We hope to specifically include communities with limited access to healthcare in our clinic efforts, such as refugee and homeless populations.