Every August, we observe National Immunization Awareness Month (NIAM), an event that educates and encourages everyone to keep up with their vaccinations. While healthcare providers continue to play important roles in education and supporting public health, the rest of us can read up on what vaccines are needed, vaccination schedules, and provide outreach to ensure that we and our neighbors remain safe and healthy from preventable diseases.
Building Trust
Part of the education bit of NIAM is to explain the importance of vaccination and to help prospective patients to trust their healthcare professionals. Particularly with the explosion in artificial intelligence-driven programs and searches (although AI can be useful!), exacerbated by the recent political climate and other factors, building confidence in vaccines has been challenging, and that has led to fears that public health crises such as the measles outbreak in early 2024 may increase. Some of this also has to do with the rapid spread of misinformation via AI searches, which are occasionally just comically wrong and would be perceived as such with some common sense, and which have educators from all regions searching for ways to improve media literacy in the age of deepfakes and poor AI-driven results.
It is a never-ending battle to continue to promote accurate, useful information and prevent misinformation and disinformation from turning people off from taking care of themselves. After all, if you cannot trust the literal Centers For Disease Control or the society for people who actually study the immune system for our mutual benefit, who can you trust?
Helping the Immune System Fight Back
The truth behind vaccines has been bolstered by medical and scientific literature for decades (possibly centuries if you consider the history of vaccines!). It has been through the efforts of pioneers such as Maurice Hilleman and a persevering army of doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals that we have effectively eradicated numerous diseases that used to plague humanity. The goal of vaccines, of course, is to help our immune systems battle infections more effectively and to prevent severe illness. The advent of the mRNA-based COVID vaccines was recognized with the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, and many more vaccines that most of us received as children or young adults prevent us from contracting polio, diphtheria, and other nasty bugs. It is our hope that in addition to helping your immune system fight disease, you will join in the cause to help your community fight misinformation so we can all stay safe and healthy together. Read below for our fun immunization infographic, and take care of yourself!
