CSIS-LSHTM High-Level Panel on Vaccine Confidence and Misinformation
The CSIS Global Health Policy Center and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine’s Vaccine Confidence Project™ have launched a high-level panel of experts to address the urgent issues of vaccine hesitancy, misinformation, and national security in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis.The panel is co-chaired by J. Stephen Morrison, Senior Vice President and GHPC Director, and Heidi J. Larson, Professor of Anthropology, Risk, and Decision Science, and Director, Vaccine Confidence Project™, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. The panel’s secretariat is based at GHPC and is headed by Katherine E. Bliss, Project Director and GHPC Senior Fellow, and Michaela Simoneau, GHPC Program Manager.
Working through the spring of 2021, the CSIS-LSHTM High-Level Panel on Vaccine Confidence and Misinformation will analyze the diverse forms of vaccine hesitancy in the United States and their links to international phenomena; identify the roles social media and misinformation play in driving hesitancy and acceptance trends; examine the ways in which vaccine hesitancy and misinformation undermine national security; and articulate practical policy recommendations for managing misinformation related to demand for, and uptake of, vaccines, with an emphasis on a Covid-19 vaccine once one is available.
The panel’s work is supported by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the foundation.
Videos
To learn more, see the full digital project and the CSIS report, highlighted above.
The choices people make about Covid-19 vaccination will determine community health, economic recovery, and even national security for years to come. Why are we facing a crisis in vaccine confidence in the United States, and what can be done to earn community trust? Hear expert takes on these issues from Katherine E. Bliss, senior fellow with the CSIS Global Health Policy Center; Denise A. Gray-Felder, founding president and CEO of the Communication for Social Change Consortium; Heidi J. Larson, professor of Anthropology, Risk, and Decision Science and director of the Vaccine Confidence Project™ at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine; J. Stephen Morrison, senior vice president and Director of the CSIS Global Health Policy Center; and LaQuandra S. Nesbitt, director of the District of Columbia Department of Health.
The rise of digital social media has revolutionized how information is shared, democratizing opportunities for broadly sharing news and opinion while also creating harbors for unverified misinformation. How have vaccines become entangled in these online debates, and what steps can be taken to ensure accurate and compelling public health messages reach people instead? Hear expert takes on these issues from Katherine E. Bliss, senior fellow with the CSIS Global Health Policy Center; James A. Lewis, senior vice president and director of the CSIS Strategic Technologies Program; J. Stephen Morrison, senior vice president and director of the CSIS Global Health Policy Center; and Sarah Shirazyan, content policy manager at Facebook, Inc.
Achieving widespread immunity, through high acceptance and uptake of Covid-19 vaccines, is a critical step to slowing coronavirus transmission and ending the acute phase of the pandemic. But if disinformation and dissent undermine confidence in vaccines, slowing U.S. and global vaccination campaigns, could distrust impede the U.S. recovery and undermine national and global security? Hear expert takes on these issues from Katherine E. Bliss, senior fellow with the CSIS Global Health Policy Center; Margaret Hamburg, former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration; Juliette Kayyem, senior Belfer lecturer in International Security at the Harvard Kennedy School; Heidi J. Larson, professor of Anthropology, Risk, and Decision Science and director of the Vaccine Confidence Project™ at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine; and J. Stephen Morrison, senior vice president and director of the CSIS Global Health Policy Center.
Analysis
Events
When Vaccine Confidence Becomes National Security
May 10, 2021
Please join the CSIS-LSHTM High-Level Panel on Vaccine Confidence and Misinformation on Monday, May 10, from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. EDT for the launch of its final report, Why Vaccine Confidence Matters to National Security.
Trusting a Covid-19 Vaccine: What’s Next?
April 9, 2021
This event was the fourth in a series of conversations about building trust in Covid-19 vaccines in the United States, focused on opportunities to enhance executive branch action and coordination to boost public confidence in vaccines beyond the Covid-19 pandemic.
Online Event: Trusting a Covid-19 Vaccine: The Role of the Media and Misinformation
January 27, 2021
This event focused on the panel’s third recommendation, urging traditional media outlets and social media companies to commit publicly to improving the information climate related to Covid-19 vaccines.
Online Event: Trusting a Covid-19 Vaccine: Who’s Left Unheard?
January 8, 2021
This event was the second in a series of conversations about building trust in Covid-19 vaccines in the United States, focused on the panel’s proposal for a campaign to better reach diverse and underserved populations with vaccines and other health and social services support, by integrating the delivery of Covid-19 vaccines into a broader platform of services.
Online Event: Trusting a Covid-19 Vaccine: Where Do We Stand?
December 16, 2020
This event focused on the panel’s first recommendation from its October 2020 Call to Action: that Congress or a non-governmental entity convene an independent, bipartisan review panel to strengthen public trust and confidence in Covid-19 vaccines in the United States, by assessing the root causes of vaccine hesitancy and identifying concrete steps to be taken at the national, state, and local levels to strengthen vaccine demand and acceptance in the Covid-19 context.
CSIS Book Launch with Heidi J. Larson – Stuck
September 16, 2020
GHPC was joined by panel co-chair Heidi J. Larson and Bruce Gellin, President of Global Immunization at the Sabin Vaccine Institute, to celebrate the launch of Heidi’s new book, Stuck: How Vaccine Rumors Start – and Why They Don’t Go Away. Stuck examines the forces behind vaccine trust and confidence, offering a critical perspective as we anticipate the introduction of a Covid-19 vaccine.
Podcasts
Mollyann Brodie, KFF: “Accept People Where They Are.”
April 21, 2021
We sat down for this episode of Coronavirus Crisis Update with the acclaimed survey expert Dr. Mollyann Brodie, who been exceptionally busy in recent months, engaging over 11,000 American adults. She finds it remarkable “how fast and dynamic vaccine confidence has moved” across all population groups, reaching acceptance among two-thirds of Americans. The “moveable middle,” of persons waiting to decide, has been cut by half to 17%. How must the focus now shift to meet these individuals where they are?
Coronavirus Crisis Update: Dr. LaQuandra Nesbitt “We Have Made Health Equity Everybody’s Business Here.”
March 25, 2021
In this episode, Dr. LaQuandra Nesbitt, director of the Washington DC Department of Health, shares her insights into battling the pandemic. “We were ready” in 2020 but had “still so much to learn” as the pandemic unfolded.
Coronavirus Crisis Update: America- Two Different Countries Responding to a Single Pandemic
October 19, 2020
Dr. Mollyann Brodie, America’s premier health survey researcher, explores the widening bifurcation of America along partisan and ideological grounds, with “wildly different conceptions, wildly different sources of information, sealed off from alternatives.”
Coronavirus Crisis Update: Heidi Larson – Time to Reset our Thinking on Vaccines
September 10, 2020
Dr. Heidi J. Larson joins Coronavirus Crisis Update to talk about her new book, Stuck: How Vaccine Rumors Start – and Why they Don’t Go Away, a wake-up call and appeal to re-think what drives popular distrust in science and rising levels of vaccine refusal and hesitancy. How should we understand rumors, risks and uncertainty, digital wildfires, and group think as we develop a new Covid-19 vaccine?
Coronavirus Crisis Update: Renee DiResta on Pseudoscience, Conspiracies, and Pandemics
June 8, 2020
In this episode, Renee DiResta, a prominent expert who studies malign narratives across social networks and what can be done to rebut them, walked Steve and Andrew through her thinking on why the coronavirus pandemic invites pseudoscience, government conspiracy theories, and misinformation campaigns. As the push accelerates for a vaccine for the planet, can we expect expansive misinformation campaigns and personal attacks upon those developing the solutions?
