1. The History of Vaccination: The scientific and social history of vaccines
2. A Closer Look at Vaccine Hesitancy: An Overview of the Modern "Anti-Vax" Movement
3. All About the Flu: The Virus that Keeps Coming Back
4. mRNA Vaccines: What They Are and How They Work
5. From Lab to Jab: The Lifetime of a Vaccine
6. What is a Vaccine?: The Science Behind Vaccines
The aim of this project is to increase awareness about the safety and efficacy of vaccines designed against multiple infectious diseases, including COVID-19, influenza, and measles. Specifically, we hope to reduce the number of individuals who forgo vaccination (for themselves and for their families) because of misinformation, lack of information or scarce resources. with which to address vaccine hesitancy among adult Americans (see newsletter attached to application). The educational resources we compiled as part of this project provide detailed information about the safety and efficacy of mRNA vaccines, outline the vaccine manufacture and approval process and debunk commonly held misconceptions about vaccines. We also explore vaccine development and hesitancy through a historical lens. In doing so, we hope to convince readers that: 1) in many ways, it was the discovery and mass distribution of vaccines that ushered in the modern era and 2) that misinformation-driven vaccine hesitancy is as old as vaccines themselves. The newsletter also contains a list of location-specific vaccination sites curated for each community we work with.
1) Increase the proportion of people who get the flu vaccine every year — IID‑09
2) Maintain the vaccination coverage level of 2 doses of the MMR vaccine for children in kindergarten — IID‑04
3) Increase the proportion of adolescents who get recommended doses of the HPV vaccine — IID‑08
4) Increase the coverage level of 4 doses of the DTaP vaccine in children by age 2 years — IID‑06
5) Increase the proportion of adults age 19 years or older who get recommended vaccines — IID‑D03
With the help of our dedicated community partners, we distributed over 100 physical copies of our vaccine education newsletter to communities in New York and Georgia. Using these materials, our outreach team hosted a panel event called "A Toolkit to Address Vaccine Hesitancy" at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.