YEREVAN, Armenia — The American University of Armenia (AUA) Gerald and Patricia Turpanjian College of Health Sciences (TCHS) is pleased to announce a new publication by Anya Agopian, Ph.D., MPH, Tamara Sedrakyan, DDS, MPH ’24, and Diana Muradyan, M.D., Ph.D., MPH ’20, in collaboration with Gayane Sahakyan, M.D., and the National Center for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC), in BMC Public Health, a peer-reviewed open-access scientific journal with an impact factor of 3.6 and a Q1 ranking, covering a broad range of topics in epidemiology and public health.
The paper, titled “The prolonged impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on routine childhood vaccinations in Armenia: a time-series analysis,” examines how the COVID-19 pandemic influenced vaccination uptake among children aged 0 to 6 living in Armenia between 2019 and 2023.
Using official vaccination data, the study found that although there were signs of recovery to pre-pandemic levels, routine vaccination coverage among children remained lower than before the pandemic. The findings point toward issues with timely and catch-up vaccinations, which can create periods of susceptibility to disease. While vaccination in Armenia is generally considered high, even slight declines in coverage levels are cause for concern as they may enable outbreaks of preventable diseases.
In the context of growing vaccine hesitancy and misinformation, examining vaccination uptake is of utmost importance for identifying gaps in coverage and informing targeted interventions to improve routine vaccination and protect the population.
The study, conducted with the support of the AUA Faculty Research Incentives program, brought together faculty, researchers, and students from TCHS in collaboration with colleagues from the NCDC.
The AUA Gerald and Patricia Turpanjian College of Health Sciences works actively to improve population health and health services in Armenia and the region through interdisciplinary education and development of health professionals to be leaders in public health, nursing, health services research and evaluation, and health care delivery and management.