Reducing COVID-19 Spread Among Formerly Incarcerated People

Formerly incarcerated people tend to live in crowded settings such as homeless shelters and group homes, which puts them at higher risk for COVID-19. Matthew Akiyama, M.D., is looking for ways to reduce that risk. He and his colleagues at Einstein and Montefiore received a five-year, $3.4 million NIH grant to study whether giving formerly incarcerated people increased access to on-site COVID-19 testing, high-quality masks, and education at a community health organization will reduce the spread of SARS- CoV-2. The testing and education will be held at The Fortune Society, a non-profit organization, where the participants will meet one-on-one with community health workers who, themselves, were formerly incarcerated.
Dr. Akiyama also discusses what he finds most rewarding about his work. He is an associate professor of medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and an attending physician at Montefiore Health System (internal medicine and infectious diseases).
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