Students Kellyann Baxendell and Victoria Montero qualified for the Emory Morningside Global Health Case after winning the Cornell competition last spring. Their winning case, “Measles Elimination and Nutritional Supplementation Program: The MEANS to an end of measles in Syria,” focused on empowering locals to distribute measles vaccines and nutrition packets to areas in need using mobile vaccine units. Their project’s goal was to eliminate measles without the use of foreign labor for 5 years.
At the Emory competition, participants were tasked with increasing COVID-19 vaccine distribution and uptake in Japan during the Olympic year. The team created a communication campaign that leveraged the traditional medicine and family values of Japan to reduce vaccine hesitancy and increase vaccination rates. Baxendel, an employee degree student, explained that she enjoyed the challenge of understanding the complexities of vaccine hesitancy and battling the lack of precedents surrounding COVID-19.
