A team from the Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS) faculty presented a poster entitled "COVID-19 vaccine acceptance in older Syrian refugees in Lebanon: findings from a longitudinal survey" at the Society for Social Medicine and Population Health 65th Annual Scientific Meeting held in Liverpool, United Kingdom, September 15-17, 2021.
FHS team included Ms. Noura El Salibi, Ms. Maria El Haddad, Dr. Stephen McCall, Dr. Hala Ghattas (Center for Research on Population and Health), and Dr. Sawsan Abdulrahim (Health Promotion and Community Health).
Graded by four independent assessors, the poster competed with over 100 posters and received a top score for its methodological rigor, public health relevance, clarity, novelty, and impact. The poster highlighted the barriers to COVID-19 vaccine acceptance among older Syrian refugees. Predictors of vaccine refusal included: being female, not adhering to COVID-19 public health measures and perceiving vaccines as unsafe. You can find the poster here.
The work was a joint effort between FHS and the Norwegian Refugee Council, Beirut Lebanon. It was supported by the Research for Health in Humanitarian Crises, ELRHA. You can find the abstract here.
The research project is funded by Elrha Research for Health in Humanitarian Crisis (R2HC) Programme, which aims to improve health outcomes by strengthening the evidence base for public health interventions in humanitarian crises. R2HC is funded by the UK Commission, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), Wellcome and the UK National Institute for Health Research (NIHR).