Brown University medical students launch vaccine survey

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WJAR) — Medical students at Brown University launched a vaccine survey to identify the causes of disparities.

"Getting the information from the community is going to help us better serve the community," said Dr. Carla Moreira, a vascular surgeon with Brown Surgical Associates -- who is serving as a mentor to these students.

"I was actually speaking to one of my close family members at the beginning of the pandemic and they disclosed to me that they would not get a vaccine for any reason," said Skenda Jean-Charles, a third-year medical student at the Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University.

"When Skenda shared this idea, or this thought, we started thinking about the broader implications of vaccine perspectives across the U.S., especially among communities of color," added Kiara Corcoran Ruiz -- also a third year medical student.

Together, they co-founded the SURGE lab.

SURGE is an acronym for Supporting Underrepresented Research to Generate Equity.

"They were really interested, as I am, in terms of identifying the barriers, what people think about the vaccine," said Moreira.

With the backing of the university, the students came up with an online survey.

"We definitely wanted to get a broader sense of kind of where individuals were getting their information from, kind of their political affiliation, because we know that can kind of inform some of their perspectives," said Jean-Charles. "Are they just concerned about the information that they don't have or is this truly a mistrust in the medical system."

"And something that we found very important is that there's an increase in the number of people that think vaccines are actually worse than the disease that they're trying to prevent," added Ruiz.

"So, our goal is to really try to identify what some of the attitudes and knowledge are and where people get their information regarding not only the covid vaccine but vaccines in general," said Moreira.

The survey takes about five minutes.

"And all of our questions are optional. It is completely anonymous so we hope that people feel confident that they can share this information and that it will be used in a just way," said Ruiz.

The hope is to find a way to bridge the divide.

"Do we need to be on different platforms, do we need to change our messaging, change our info, or is it an access issue. Do people want vaccines and want more information and not able to get it," said Moreira.

Another student, Giancarlo Medina Perez, was unavailable for an interview, but is also part of the project.