Interprofessional Course on Vaccine Safety, Hesitancy and Confidence

This was a ten week interactive course on vaccine hesitancy which involved teams of students from 6 different schools at Columbia working together. The goal was to provide students with an understanding of: 1) How we know that vaccines are safe and efficacious/effective; 2) What we mean by the vaccine hesitant/deliberating and vaccine confident designations and the distinct makeup of the vaccine hesitant/deliberating group; 3) The reasons why people are vaccine hesitant/deliberating including racism within healthcare system and its impact, cultural perspectives and experiences; 4) What are the drivers of vaccine hesitancy/deliberation; 5) What is meant by cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias in the context of vaccine hesitancy/deliberation; 6) What is the importance of “influencers” including health care professionals; 7) Vaccination and ethics – do health care professionals have an ethical obligation to be immunized in order to protect their patients; 8) Vaccination and the law – the legal basis for vaccine mandates; and 9) Addressing vaccine hesitancy/deliberation - what works and what does not.