Virtual Nursing Grand Rounds: Holy Cowpox: A Nursing Guide to Vaccine Uptake and Hesitancy

Jason Farley, PhD, MPH, RN, FAAN is a world renowned nursing scientist, and the inaugural Leadership and Innovation Endowed Chair at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. He directs the Center for Infectious Disease and Nursing Innovation. As an Infectious Disease Nurse Epidemiologist and a Nurse Practitioner in the Division of Infectious Diseases at The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, his clinical practice in the John Bartlett Specialty Practice spans HIV prevention, treatment and associated co-infections.

Dr. Farley’s research seeks to optimize a patient’s diagnostic experience, linkage to care, and their retention in care for a variety of infectious diseases. He designs multi-component interventions to build an equitable care experience tailored to the patient’s individual needs. Locally, in an interventional cohort in Baltimore City, his community health worker model offers an ‘unapologetically enabling’ approach to achieve equitable access, retention and engagement for patients struggling with HIV viral suppression. His team is responding directly to the COVID-19 pandemic and recently received multiple COVID-19 related grants, including 3 Coronavirus Prevention Network (CoVPN) grants and a collaborative supplement through the NIH Center for AIDS Research. C-Forward is a comparative effectiveness trial of COVID-19 testing modalities in which patients are randomized to hospital-based, mobile van or home-based COVID-19 testing [PIs: Farley (Nursing); Mehta (Public Health); and Jenning (Medicine)].

Dr. Farley earned his Ph.D. and his MSN at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, his MPH at the University of Alabama Birmingham (UAB), and his BSN at the University of Alabama (UA).

Omeid Heidari, PhD, MPH, RN is a postdoctoral fellow at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. His work is focused broadly on improving healthcare engagement for people living with HIV and other chronic infectious diseases, and substance use disorder. He is focused on the behavioral mechanisms of substance use, the social network impact on healthcare engagement, and use of telehealth for medication for opioid use disorder services. His clinical practice is focused on treatment of HIV, Hepatitis C, and other chronic infectious diseases in the primary care setting. He also works with the Behavioral Health Leadership Institute on their low barrier suboxone van. Since April 2021, Dr. Heidari has collaborated with the Baltimore City Health Department’s syringe services program and the Center for Infectious Disease and Nursing innovation to deliver COVID-19 vaccines to people who inject drugs along with wound care and infectious disease testing. He received is BSN at the UC Irvine School of Nursing. He received his MSN, MPH and PhD degrees at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing.

Dominique Guillaume, MSN, RN is a HIV certified nurse practitioner with research expertise in using health communication strategies to address HIV and cervical cancer disparities in high burden communities locally and globally. As a PhD student at Johns Hopkins School of Nursing , a Jhpiego Global Women’s Health Fellow, and research assistant at the International Vaccine Access Center, she has collaborated on studies evaluating indicators for HPV vaccine program introduction in GAVI-eligible countries; in addition to evaluating the feasibility, acceptability, and sustainability of HPV vaccination programs in sub-Saharan Africa. Her dissertation work addresses HPV vaccination intention through exploring risk perception and cultural worldviews amongst Haitian immigrant women living with HIV.  Dominique received her BSN at the University of Maryland School of Nursing, and her MSN at Duke University.

Keri Geiger, RN is a registered nurse and a PhD candidate at Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing. Keri's research interest and nursing practice focuses on improving health care for people living with infectious diseases, especially during emergency crisis situations. Keri has extensive experience in global humanitarian medicine, including responding to the 2021 West and Central Africa yellow fever outbreak in the Republic of Chad and restarting preventative vaccination services which were disrupted due to armed conflict. Keri received her BSN at the Virginia Commonwealth University.