Эксперты и студенты разбирают глобальный опыт борьбы с недоверием к вакцинам в новом сериале

The episode structure mirrors the evidence-based framework students learned in class, building from macro policy down to grassroots trust. Episodes 1 and 6 feature only the four students: Williams, Wells, Pavel, and Olivia McCarthy, MPH ’26. The first episode covers the vaccine landscape on social media, myth-debunking, and facts most audiences bring to the conversation. The finale loops back through every episode’s highlights while introducing new threads — barriers to vaccine access, the HPV vaccine, and a policy update. Episode two introduces Jason Schwartz, PhD, associate professor of public health (health policy) and a leading vaccine policy expert, to lay out how the U.S. system actually works — the difference between a mandate and a recommendation, how the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) functions within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and how vaccine policy shifts impact an average patient’s conversation with their doctor, and their understanding of the evidence. “He breaks it down one step further,” Wells said. Episode 3 turns from policy to trust, featuring Marietta Vazquez, MD, a professor of pediatrics (infectious disease) at Yale School of Medicine who runs the Yale Hispanic Clinic. Vazquez walks through what a non-judgmental conversation with a parent who is hesitant about vaccinating their child looks like — and why it matters that different cultures bring different values to their children’s care. At Vazquez’s request, the episode was filmed in both English and Spanish, so she can share it directly with her Spanish-speaking patients in New Haven. “One of our most powerful episodes,” Wells called it. Episode 4 returns to Talbert-Slagle — not as an academic, but as a parent. She talks about navigating vaccine decisions while completing her PhD, the power of anecdotal stories to unsettle even well-informed people, and why she ultimately vaccinated her children without hesitation. “It’s really cool to hear her as a parent,” Wells said, “but then she slowly starts to transition into herself as a public health professional. We kind of grow with her.” Episode 5 expands the lens globally, with Nicola Hawley, PhD, associate professor of epidemiology (chronic diseases), and Dr. Take Nasiri, MBBS, former Director General of the Ministry of Health in Samoa. Together they examine the 2019 Samoan measles outbreak — a decade-long slide in vaccination rates, driven in part by social media distrust, that bottomed out around 60%. “Eighty individuals passed away,” said Pavel, “and the government invested in a mass vaccination campaign and was able to get it back up to the high 90s in just a couple of weeks — which was really a feat in itself.” Nasiri’s narrative was “Heartbreaking to hear,” Wells said. “He talks about how you’re losing children every day.” The series then ties Samoa’s experience to emerging domestic warning signs — measles outbreaks in Texas and South Carolina, where even small drops in vaccination rates are beginning to show up in communities. “Almost a warning, in a sense,” Wells said. For Williams, the six episodes add up to something greater than the sum of their parts. “They all go together so well,” she said.