The Toils, Trials, and Tribulations of Research on Childhood Vaccine Acceptance

* Abbreviation: VHP — : vaccine-hesitant parent The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 pandemic has put into sharp perspective the paucity of our understanding of how to influence immunization behavior. If we must achieve herd immunity to halt this pandemic, how can that be accomplished? What could we do now to ensure almost universal acceptance of a vaccine determined by the US Food and Drug Administration to be safe and effective in preventing coronavirus disease? Furthermore, recent experience with measles in the United States has demonstrated that even the ready availability of an indisputably effective and demonstrably safe vaccine is no longer sufficient to prevent outbreaks. We need to figure out how to achieve and sustain vaccine acceptance by a high proportion of our population. The investment required to bring a new vaccine to licensure in the United States (estimated to cost ∼$1 billion)1 warrants a substantial commitment to funding research on how and when attitudes and beliefs about vaccines are formed and how best to communicate about vaccines to parents and the public to promote vaccine acceptance. The good news is that this work is well on its way for childhood vaccines. There is a robust literature on parents’ vaccine attitudes … Address correspondence to Edgar K. Marcuse, MD, MPH, FPIDS, Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington School of Medicine, 4800 Sand Point Way NE Seattle, Washington, 98105. E-mail: emarcuse{at}uw.edu