Understanding the impact of vaccine confidence on overall health indicators
The University of Washington Population Health Initiative is leading an interdisciplinary research team to perform a mixed-methods study to understand the impact of vaccination and vaccine confidence upon overall public health after the COVID-19 pandemic and compare outcomes across states with the highest and lowest vaccination rates, with particular focus on states that over- or underperform in projects for other public health outcomes.
The project goal is to assess how increasing vaccine hesitancy and delays in care during the pandemic may have led to declining trust in medicine and science, thereby impacting overall public health in the United States (as indicated by rates of use of other preventive health services).
The project has two research aims:
- Measure changes in uptake of immunization and other preventive health services between pre-pandemic (2015-19) and post-pandemic (2020-21 and 2022-23) to identify eight sites for focused qualitative inquiry.
- Undertake qualitative analysis to characterize the impact of vaccination upon overall public health, as indicated by uptake of other preventive health services.
We believe the findings of this project will support vaccination and preventive care, policymakers, and other key partners in understanding attitudes, perceptions, decision making, trends and influences or drivers of hesitancy for vaccination and preventive care. Additionally, gaining insight into interventions, policies and programs used to improve vaccination and/or preventive care.
The UW project team includes faculty and staff from the School of Medicine and the Population Health Initiative.
Funding Acknowledgement
This study is funded by a research grant from the Investigator-Initiated Studies Program of Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp (MISP Reference Number 103138).