SASHA AGARWAL

I am a sophomore at Harvard living in Dunster House, concentrating in Neuroscience with a secondary in Economics. I grew up in Kolkata, India. I was part of my high school’s Model UN club since the eighth grade, and served as President over junior and senior year. I have served as Director at HMUN India 2022 and HMUN Boston 2023, and compete at the intercollegiate level with the Harvard ICMUN team. My Model UN experiences have been pivotal to helping me think critically about global action, find my voice as an advocate for real world issues I care about, and find some of my closest friends and mentors. 

Beyond Model UN, I’m part of the Harvard College Consulting Group, the Harvard Global Research and Consulting Group, Harvard Women in Medicine, the Crimson Editorial, and do research with Partners in Health, the Brigham-HMS Mongan Institute, McLean’s Center for Depression, Stress and Anxiety Research,, and Mass General Hospitals. I’m extremely passionate about international cooperation in catalyzing global health equity and the role of health economics in democratizing access to quality care, which makes this committee very special to me!

topic 1: Inequities in Vaccine Delivery

Vulnerable and marginalized groups are the most impacted by public health inequality. In addition to lack of access for people in rural areas, children living through conflict and humanitarian emergencies may not be able to complete the full childhood vaccine series.

topic 2: Vaccine Hesitancy and Anti-Vaccination Movements

Vaccine hesitancy carries a significant social cost because vaccine refusal allows viruses to infiltrate an otherwise potentially protected community. Vaccine hesitancy is a multi-faceted issue consisting of many domains including social, religious, cultural, political and personal facets.

We will be delving further into these inequities across seasonal and routine vaccinations, within and across countries, touching on considerations of race, socioeconomic barriers, and vaccine apartheid.