Associate Scientist in Health Geography
University of Wisconsin- Madison Applied Population Laboratory
Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Dear Pandemic
Description:
In this talk, Dr. Jones will discuss the origins, guiding principles, and mission of the science communication platform, Dear Pandemic. She will also discuss the origins and challenges of the “infodemic”–a WHO term for the overwhelming amount of information, both good and bad, circulating during the COVID-19 pandemic; and its implications for public health. Current efforts to evaluate Dear Pandemic‘s impacts, qualitative analysis of the questions and comments received over the course of the pandemic, and future directions for this intervention model will be highlighted.
Bio:
Malia Jones, PhD, MPH is an interdisciplinary researcher working at the intersection of infectious disease and social epidemiology, demography, and geography. She is an Associate Scientist in Health Geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Applied Population Laboratory, where her work focuses on how the places we spend time affect our health, especially spatial clustering of infectious disease and vaccines. She is also the co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Dear Pandemic, and over the past year has emerged as a national leader in science communications about the pandemic. Her current research program is funded by the National Institutes for Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). She received an MPH and PhD in Public Health at UCLA, and completed postdoctoral training at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine. Her work has been published in journals including the American Journal of Public Health, Health Affairs, and Demography.
CV:
https://www.maliajonesphd.com/