Understanding the Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Mental Health Using Network Analysis

Seminar Speaker: Folashade Agusto, PhD, University of Kansas

To manage the spread of the COVID-19 virus several health-related policies and mandates including lockdowns were put in place across the country by federal and state government; these policies could have adverse effects on the mental health state of the populace. Dr. Agusto will discuss the impact of COVID-19 policy actions on mental health in the country using mental health-related indicators such as feeling anxious, feeling depressed, and worried about finances using urvey data her group analyzed from the Delphi Group at Carnegie Mellon University using clustering algorithms and dynamic connectome.

Dr. Folashade Agusto is a trained applied mathematician based in the department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Kansas. Dr. Agusto designs novel epidemic models to gain insight into the emergence and re-emergence of infectious diseases of public health importance and how to mitigate the risks they pose to human health. She has designed and analyzed novel models for diseases like Ebola, avian influenza, bovine tuberculosis, Johnes disease, toxplasmagondii, Chikungunya, and malaria. Dr. Agusto’s current works are on modeling tick-borne disease across the Great Plains, and understanding the role of human behavior on the transmission of COVID-19. Her outreach program involves capacity building and knowledge transfer across West Africa by organizing summer schools in mathematical epidemiology and ecology in Benin, Senegal, and Nigeria. This summer, she will be running a summer school in Ghana.

To learn more about the Biomedical Data Science Seminar Series and Innovation Lab, please visit https://www.innovation.lab.virginia.edu

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