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Deionna Vigil is an infectious disease researcher, scientist, and noted advocate for health equity amongst indigenous populations. She is a senior research program coordinator for the Johns Hopkins University Center for Indigenous Health. She is especially known for her work in including the perspectives and engagement of Navajo professionals and academics in clinical trials related to COVID-19 vaccine.

Vigil is a member of the Tewa Peoples and resides in Nanbé Ówîngeh (Nambe Pueblo), New Mexico.

Education
In 2018, Vigil graduated from Fort Lewis College with a bachelor of science in cellular and molecular biology. Since 2022, she has been attending the University of California, Berkeley to pursue a Masters of Public Health in Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology.

Research and career
From 2018 until 2020, she was affiliated with the National Institutes of Health National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke as an Intramural Research Training Award (IRTA) postbaccalaureate fellow.

As an intern at the NIH while mentored by Barbara Karp, Vigil became interested in examining and improving Native American inclusion and engagement in research processes. In 2020, she joined the Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health as a Senior Research Coordinator with a focus on infectious disease prevention.

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Vigil conducted research on how to better include the perspectives and engagement of Navajo professionals and academics in clinical trials related to the COVID-19 vaccine. She and her team designed frameworks to maintain the future involvement of local indigenous perspectives in medical research.

Additionally, she conducted a trial that administered Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines to participants residing on the Navajo and White Mountain Apache reservations.

As a post-baccalaureate research fellow in the Intramural Research Program at the National Institutes of Health, Vigil investigated the involvement of Native Americans in clinical trials and biomedical studies to test the efficacy of medications and uncover new treatments. She found that although there had been increases in Native American participation between 2014 and 2017, overall participation levels were at 1%. Based on the findings of her study that Native Americans are underrepresented in clinical studies, she and her team highlighted the need to increase Native American participation in NIH studies and medical decision-making.

In 2021, Vigil investigated the efficacy of mRNA vaccines for COVID-19 in reducing subsequent hospital admissions among Native American patients, and concluded that vaccines and booster shots were highly effective at preventing hospital and outpatient visits for the populations in question.

In 2023, she coauthored a publication investigating the ongoing effects of colonization on infectious disease risk factors on indigenous populations. The publication suggests that health institutions and government organizations should pay attention to the unique health challenges of indigenous communities and reflect that through strategically designed interventions, equitable access to data, and cultural knowledge practices.

Awards and honors

 * Intramural Research Training Award (IRTA)
 * Best Oral Presentation | Issued by SACNAS Chapter at the NIH Science Symposium

Selected publications

 * Infectious diseases in Indigenous populations in North America: learning from the past to create a more equitable future
 * American Indian and Alaska Native Enrollment in Clinical Studies in the National Institutes of Health's Intramural Research Program
 * Effectiveness of COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines in Preventing COVID-19-Associated Outpatient Visits and Hospitalizations Among American Indian and Alaska Native Persons, January–November 2021: A Test-Negative Case–Control Analysis Using Surveillance Data