Chin Participates in White House COVID-19 Session

This summer, Dr. Jean Chin was among distinguished names featured in a COVID-19 information session by the White House.

Chin represented the American College Health Association (ACHA) which features a COVID-19 task force and the Campus COVID-19 Vaccine Initiative (CoVAC)—a project funded through a cooperative agreement with CDC. Chin was the inaugural chair of the task force and serves on the steering committee for CoVAC.

“The American College Health Association has done some amazing work with COVID-19 these past 18 months. Our work raised the profile of ACHA to such an extent that we got the attention of CDC, the Department of Education, and ultimately the White House,” said Chin.

The White House developed a series of sessions to inform, share on resources and best practices, and Mary Wall, senior policy advisor for the White House COVID-19 response team, asked the ACHA to participate due to their numerous COVID-19 resources.

“Many of those resources were developed when I was either chair of the task force or as chair (which I continue to serve) of the writing team for guidelines. So, ACHA asked me to discuss the vaccine resources we had,” said Chin.

The headliner for the session was CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, and Chin gave her presentation, named “ACHA Vaccine Resources”, after Walensky spoke.

“That was just great because I imagine everyone stopped listening after Dr. Walensky stopped talking,” joked Chin. “I was followed by someone who talked about voting rights and using some of the same marketing to attract young voters to attract people to get vaccinated. There was then a brief panel on best practices.”

Chin was joined by other influential names in the session as well—First Lady Dr. Jill Biden and Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff were also in attendance.

To learn more about the American College Health Association, visit https://www.acha.org/