Sandra C. Quinn

Sandra Quinn, Ph.D., is Professor and Chair of the Department of Family Science and Senior Associate Director of the Maryland Center for Health Equity in the School of Public Health. She has been the PI on CDC, NIH and FDA grants focused on vaccine acceptance and vaccine disparities. During the 2009-10 H1N1 influenza pandemic, she led two national surveys which were the first to examine public attitudes toward emergency use authorizations for drugs and vaccines and test an empirical model of disparities in exposure, susceptibility and access to care during a pandemic.

She is an appointed member of a National Academies of Science committee on Evidence-Based Practices for Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response. She is a member of the NIH-funded, COVID-19 Prevention Network expert panel on older adults and serves on the working group of CommuniVax, a national alliance of social scientists, public health experts, and community advocates who aim to strengthen national and local COVID-19 vaccination efforts by putting communities of color at the center. Research interests include vaccine acceptance in routine and emergency situations; racial disparities in vaccine uptake; crisis and emergency-risk communication with a specific focus on minority populations; and engagement of minority and marginalized communities in research.