The Critical Public Health Value of Vaccines: Tackling Issues of Access and Hesitancy: Proceedings of a Workshop

Contributors

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Health and Medicine DivisionBoard on Global HealthForum on Microbial Threats; Julie Liao, Charles Minicucci, and Anna Nicholson, Rapporteurs

Description

Immunization against disease is among the most successful global health efforts of the modern era, and substantial gains in vaccination coverage rates have been achieved worldwide. However, that progress has stagnated in recent years, leaving an estimated 20 million children worldwide either undervaccinated or completely unvaccinated. The determinants of vaccination uptake are complex, mutable, and context specific. A primary driver is vaccine hesitancy – defined as a “delay in acceptance or refusal of vaccines despite availability of vaccination services”. The majority of vaccine-hesitant people fall somewhere on a spectrum from vaccine acceptance to vaccine denial. Vaccine uptake is also hampered by socioeconomic or structural barriers to access.

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Topics

Suggested Citation

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. The Critical Public Health Value of Vaccines: Tackling Issues of Access and Hesitancy: Proceedings of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/26134.