Dr. Jennifer Reich

I think it's even more true since COVID.

We do know that vaccine hesitancy has become more partisan since COVID.

And I think that's worth highlighting, right?

That was not true at the time I was doing my research.

That really shifted during COVID, but that people's identities get more closely aligned with their political membership, and that's coming into vaccine decision-making too.

I think when we run into people who disagree with us in general and when it comes to vaccines in particular, it can get really heated really quickly because infectious disease is one of these things where your individual choices don't just stay with you.

So it's hard to stay engaged in this is just an agree to disagree kind of situation when your decisions affect me directly.

So it's hard to think through what makes sense.

But we know a couple of things.

Confronting people to tell them that they're wrong doesn't usually persuade people.

And that the idea that if you tell people that they're ignorant or anti-science or even behaving selfishly, that I think has almost never persuaded anyone to rethink their decisions.

So that's a terrible place to start.

We also know that if healthcare providers and public health experts are committed to this health literacy model, going back to, I'll just educate you and you'll make the decision I want you to make, we just know that's not going to work.

So telling people statistics, trying to scare them with pictures of measles, telling them the population risks tend to be relatively unpersuasive.

If we remember, though, that I think everybody wants healthy communities, everyone wants healthy children.

How is it that this is a technology that's not aligned with that view?

And we start with that question of what are your concerns and how do we work from them?

We can often start to close the gap and think through.

I'd say one of the things that health care providers are going to have to continue to grapple with, though, is the story that all vaccines are equally important all the time.

And I think the easy answer is yes.