Cheryl Graffagnino, MS, RD, LD (OHPF 2023) and Colleagues Publish Vaccine Incentive Program Findings

Congratulations to Cheryl Graffagnino, MS, RD, LD, program officer at the Osteopathic Heritage Foundations, and her colleagues at Columbus Public Health and The Ohio State University College of Public Health on publishing “Real-time Monitoring and Evaluation of the Vax Cash Program: A Case Study from Columbus, Ohio,” in the Ohio Journal of Public Health. 

During Graffagnino’s tenure with Columbus Public Health prior to joining the Foundations, this project studied outcomes associated with the “Vax Cash” program launched in Ohio in 2021 which provided $100 gift cards to incentivize first time COVID vaccination. Graffagnino and colleagues found that vaccination rates increased in areas of high social vulnerability in the Columbus, Ohio region associated with the ten clinics involved in the project through the Columbus Public Health program. Their findings suggest that similarly designed programs could be applied to achieve other public health prevention goals.

In addition to reading the open access article in the OJPH, listen to two of Graffagnino’s colleagues discuss the article with OHPF Co-Director and Associate Professor of Health Policy at OU-HCOM, Dr. Dan Skinner, on his podcast, Prognosis Ohio.