Economic toll of declining MMR vaccination

Economic costs of measles outbreaks

Science Sessions are brief conversations with cutting-edge researchers, National Academy members, and policymakers as they discuss topics relevant to today's scientific community. Learn the behind-the-scenes story of work published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), plus a broad range of scientific news about discoveries that affect the world around us.

In this episode, Alison Galvani explains the costs of waning measles vaccination rates.

In this episode, we cover:
•[00:00] Introduction.
•[01:12] Epidemiologist Alison Galvani introduces the MMR vaccine and describes its efficacy.
•[02:23] Galvani recounts the changes in MMR vaccination rates in recent years.
•[03:56] She describes how the researchers modeled the economic impacts of measles outbreaks.
•[05:49] Galvani talks about what the economic impacts look like in everyday life.
•[06:39] She talks about the findings regarding the costs of measles outbreaks in 2025.
•[07:06] Galvani enumerates the costs of a percentage decrease in vaccination rates.
•[08:06] She lists the takeaways from the study, including the disproportionate societal effects of a small decrease in vaccination rates.
•[08:58] She lists the caveats and limitations of the study.
•[10:13] Conclusion.

About Our Guest:

Alison Galvani
Director, Center of Infectious Disease Modeling and Analysis
Yale School of Public Health

View related content here: https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2605971123

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