Presidential Leadership Scholars Dr. Jay Bhatt and Dr. Kavita Patel recently wrote an opinion piece for ABC News on overcoming vaccine hesitancy. Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/takes-community-overcome-vaccine-hesitancy-opinion/story?id=75403505&fbclid=IwAR36nOLg6Q581CcPhwf3_o1asrrVW2G_vnliSRwVXbQ6MSD1rf9ESZKVJzo
February 1, 2021
It takes a community to help overcome vaccine hesitancy: OPINION
Jay Bhatt ('16), and Kavita Patel ('15).
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Jay Bhatt
Class of 2016
Health Care
Of the approximately 40 million people living with HIV, almost 25 million dwell in Africa. Even with these high numbers, life-saving HIV treatments remain scarce across a majority of the continent. To improve the nation’s efforts, Jay Bhatt trains, supports, and empowers community-based lay health workers, especially those currently suffering from the illness. During his time in the program, Jay has continued to provide assistance to health workers by ensuring all are paid sufficient wages, continuing to educate and train on new protocols, and adequately staffing aid clinics to better treat referrals specifically from the front-line lay health providers.
Kavita Patel
Class of 2015
Health Care
About Her Project
The Frontline Healthcare Worker Initiative was launched in 2014 and has helped over 100 men and women find jobs in the healthcare profession. The Initiative launched to help lay community members obtain standardized training to counsel patients with specific chronic diseases, manage their care, and navigate the complex healthcare system. In this year’s efforts, Johns Hopkins and several other healthcare organizations volunteered to sponsor employment fairs to recruit such workers. Kavita Patel and her team have worked with educational institutions to develop a 20-hour curriculum which can be used to train lay and existing healthcare workers and plan to scale the effort nationally.