Obianuju Genevieve Aguolu

  • Visiting Assistant Professor

Areas of Study

Education

  • Postdoctoral Associate, Yale University School of Medicine, 2022
  • PhD, public health epidemiology, Kent State University, 2018
  • MPH, University of Akron, 2012
  • MBBS, College of Health Sciences, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, 2004

Biography

Dr. Aguolu is a visiting assistant professor at the Department of Biology. She completed her postdoctoral training at Yale Institute for Global Health, where she coordinated several research projects. Her work focused on the epidemiology of respiratory infections such as influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, as well as vaccine acceptance across several institutions in the United States and abroad.

She earned her doctoral degree in Epidemiology from College of Public Health, Kent State University, where her research focused on infectious diseases, vaccine acceptance, and health disparity. For her dissertation, she designed, implemented, and evaluated an award-winning educational comic book to address HPV vaccine knowledge gaps and misconceptions among college students. This work is already benefiting from cross-institution collaborations between Ohio Department of Health, Ohio Partners for Cancer Control (OPCC), a statewide consortium dedicated to reducing the cancer burden in Ohio, and College of Public Health, Kent State University. They are studying the impact of the HPV Education Comic Book on HPV vaccine knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and acceptance among high school students in Ohio. Her goal is to further move this project toward improving knowledge, beliefs, and behaviors regarding vaccine preventable diseases.  

She earned her master’s degree in Public Health from Consortium of Eastern Ohio Master’s in Public Health/University of Akron, Ohio, and Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) degree from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Nnewi, Anambra, Nigeria. She completed two years of pediatrics residency training in the United States before moving on to public health.

  • Infectious disease epidemiology

  • Health disparity

  • Vaccine acceptance

  • Maternal and child health

  • Global health

  • Graphic medicine

  • Kiti, M. C.*, Aguolu, O. G.*, Liu, C. Y., Mesa, A. R., Regina, R., Woody, M., Willebrand, K., Couzens, C., Bartelsmeyer, T., Nelson, K. N., Jenness, S., Riley, S., Melegaro, A., Ahmed, F., Malik, F., Lopman, B. A., & Omer, S. B. (2021). Social contact patterns among employees in 3 U.S. companies during early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, April to June 2020. Epidemics, 100481. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epidem.2021.100481 (*: first coauthors)
  • Kazi, A. M., Aguolu O. G., Mughis, M., Ahsan, N., Jamal, S., Qureshi, H., Yildirim, I., Malik, F. A., Omer, S. B., Respiratory Syncytial Virus Mortality among recently deceased young infants in Karachi, Pakistan: A prospective post-mortem surveillance study. Clinical Infectious Diseases Journal. (Accepted June 2021)
  • McFadden, S. M., Malik A. A., Aguolu O. G., Willebrand K. S., Omer S. B. Perceptions of the adult US population regarding the novel coronavirus outbreak. PLoS One. 2020;15(4):e0231808. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0231808 doi.
  • Shafiq, M., Elharake, J. A., Malik, A. A., McFadden, S. M., Aguolu, O. G., and Omer, S. B., COVID-19 Sources of Information, Knowledge, and Preventative Behaviors among U.S. Adult Population. Journal of Public Health Management & Practice. January 2020. PMID: 33762543 DOI: 10.1097/PHH.0000000000001348
  • Akpan, I. J., Aguolu, O. G., Ezeume, I. C. Overcoming the Challenge of Communicating the Concept and Science of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 to Non-experts. Challenge. 2021; DOI:10.1080/05775132.2021.1912984. Accepted April 1, 2021.
  • Akpan I. J., Aguolu O. G., Kobara Y. M., Razavi R., Akpan A. A., Shanker M. (2021). Association Between What People Learned About COVID-19 Using Web Searches and Their Behavior Toward Public Health Guidelines: Empirical Infodemiology Study. J of Medical Internet Research.DOI:10.2196/28975
  • Malik A. A., McFadden, S. M., Elharake, J. A., Aguolu O. G., Shafiq, M., Omer, S. B. COVID-19 Risk Perception Among U.S. Adults: Changes from February to May 2020. MedRxiv Preprint. August 23, 2020. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.08.20.20178822

An Important to Conversation to Have: An HPV/HPV Vaccine Educational Comic Book
An Important to Conversation to Have:
An HPV/HPV Vaccine Educational Comic Book

  • PhD Distinguished Student Award (2019)

    • College of Public Health, Kent State University, Kent, OH

  • First Prize - Ohio Graduate Public Health Students Category for the 2018, for “Community Health Interprofessional Challenge (Addressing Ohio’s Opioid Epidemic)”

    • College of Public Health, Kent State University, Kent, OH

  • 2018 Akron Silver American Advertising Federation (ADDY) Award Winner, for "An Important to Conversation to Have: An HPV/HPV Vaccine Educational Comic Book"

    • College of Public Health, Kent State University, Kent, OH

  • 2018 Hiram College, Hiram, OH - Graphic Medicine Competition Award Winner, for "An Important to Conversation to Have: An HPV/HPV Vaccine Educational Comic Book"

    • College of Public Health, Kent State University, Kent, OH

  • 2012 People's Choice Award for Poster Presentation

    • Ohio Public Health Combined Conference 2012, Columbus, OH

Spring 2023

Human Anatomy Lecture and Lab — BIOL 234

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