UTA student to present COVID-19 research on world stage
A University of Texas at Arlington doctoral student will present her research on COVID-19 vaccine misinformation at a prestigious international health informatics conference this summer.
Ana Aleksandric, a doctoral student in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, will travel to Sydney, Australia, this July to present at the 19th World Congress on Medical and Health Informatics (MedInfo 2023), billed as the world’s premier digital health and health informatics event. More than 3,000 delegates from over 50 countries are expected to attend.
Aleksandric’s study, “Facebook post credibility as a predictor of vaccine hesitancy in the U.S.,” examines the content of website URLs shared on Facebook and whether they impacted COVID-19 vaccination rates across the country.
“We found that unreliable sources are negatively associated with vaccinations,” she said. “This means they are contributing to lower vaccination rates compared to reliable sources being shared.”
Conversely, the research showed that more reliable URLs, such as those from the World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and city and county health departments, helped promote higher vaccination rates among Americans.
With research data broken down by state, the study suggests that people in states with lower health literacy rely more on social media and potential misinformation. Aleksandric calls for more online intervention to help guide readers toward more reputable sources.
“In the same way that social media can be a weakness, it can also be a strength,” she said. “We can make it work better for us and inform society of what is actually going on.”
The research builds on Aleksandric’s interest in examining COVID-19 misinformation. She was previously selected as one of just two Technology Informatics Guiding Education Reform scholars worldwide. In that role, she hopes to make people aware of more accurate vaccination resources.
Gabriela Wilson, professor, co-director of the UTA Multi-Interprofessional Center for Health Informatics (MICHI) and one of Aleksandric’s mentors, said COVID-19 opened new avenues to see how data and knowledge can contribute to health-related decisions. Aleksandric’s work is just one innovative example.
“This is a unique opportunity for Ana to disseminate her work at an international level, learn from experts, expand her knowledge, and demonstrate her ability to serve and contribute to advancing science,” Wilson said.
Aleksandric said she is grateful for the mentorship of Wilson and Shirin Nilizadeh, assistant professor of computer science and engineering. She said MICHI’s multidisciplinary approach to research has made her a better scientist, a point she plans to stress at the informatics conference in Australia.
“You have me as a computer science student who can get the perspective of a public health student to help me interpret these results even better,” she said. “That’s something I would like to show off.”