Vaccine hesitancy is not new, but we are increasingly confronting it in new ways. Social media, wellness culture, loss of trust in science and experts, political polarization, and longstanding distrust of institutions have created a landscape that feels like the Wild West. There aren’t many spaces where people who have changed their minds about vaccines can share their stories.
This made our most recent webinar incredibly special. We heard directly from four rockstars—our own Liz Marnik, Executive Director of The Evidence Collective, a program under YLE; Anna Culbertson; Kelsey Fox Bennett Boyd; and Kristin Oliver—who were raised unvaccinated and eventually changed their minds. (Liz shared more of her experience here in the NYT.)
Their stories show us how we can improve conversations with people who might be vaccine hesitant and, most importantly, foster empathy and understanding for the process of changing one’s mind.
Paid subscribers can access the full webinar recording above—I know many of you have been waiting for it!
Five key takeaways
1. Changing minds takes time. Nobody in this conversation went from having never been vaccinated to running to get vaccines overnight. Over time, small moments add up: a coach’s offhand comment, a college requirement, becoming a parent, a story from a friend. Plant seeds and trust they’ll grow.
2. Vaccine decisions play into identity. Whether to get vaccinated is tied to whom they trust and where they belong. People’s reasons for not getting vaccinated vary—like every other aspect of identity, there’s more heterogeneity here than we might expect. Acknowledging the identity piece, instead of treating this as a debate over facts, is a step toward meeting people where they are.
3. Close the language gap. Panelists consistently felt safest with people who could meet them on their terms. Being open to terms like wellness, “root cause,” and prevention makes a difference—in truth, these are things we all care about, and familiar language supports trust-building. So does being curious about how alternative medicine and holistic approaches may complement Western medicine.
4. Get genuinely curious about sources. We are exposed to information constantly, and our online environments make it easy to sound authoritative without vetted experience. Some people have had dismissive or harmful experiences with the medical system that understandably influence their perspectives today. Questions like “Where did you hear that? What made you trust that person? Can we listen to that podcast together?” show true curiosity. Asked without judgment, these questions signal that you’re interested in truly understanding, not in winning a debate.
5. You don’t have to be a doctor to be a trusted messenger. Every story in this conversation pointed to the same thing: the people who created cracks in the system that questioned vaccines were not physicians. They were coaches, friends, fellow parents, and people sharing their own stories of going from unvaccinated to vaccinated.
FAQs
Webinar participants asked fantastic questions, but we ran out of time to address them all live! Liz chose four to address here:
