Dr. Monica Cojocaru receives $300,000 to help improve preparedness for respiratory pathogen epidemics
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the profound impact of human behavior on the spread of infectious diseases. From mask-wearing and social distancing to vaccine hesitancy and pandemic fatigue, the dynamics of human behavior proved to be a critical challenge for governments and health agencies. The constantly evolving science and the public’s willingness to adopt health measures often left policymakers struggling to keep pace. To address these complexities, a groundbreaking collaboration between academia, industry, and government agencies aims to quantify how populations perceive and adopt public health policies. This partnership will investigate decision-making mechanisms at individual, group, and population levels, assessing how these behaviors influence the dynamics of pathogen transmission over time and across diverse geographic and socio-demographic categories.