CM Abreu Q&A: Chokshi on falling vaccination rates and misinformation
Chokshi expresses concern about falling vaccination rates, noting measles, mumps, rubella, and polio are preventable tragedies. He emphasizes the importance of trusted messengers, particularly pediatricians and community health workers, over government officials alone.
As a Board of Health member, how would you address failing, sorry, how would you address falling vaccination rates and combat vaccine misinformation?
This is something that I'm also very concerned about, so thank you for spotlighting it as well.
We have work to do with respect to
trust with respect to contending with misinformation, most importantly with ensuring that children are protected against what are completely preventable illnesses.
Every single case of measles, of
mumps, rubella, polio, these are preventable tragedies with vaccination.
So the things that we have to do, number one,
We have to ensure that it is not just about the messages that we're delivering about vaccination, but also the messengers.
This is something that we took seriously during the pandemic for the health department to know when it was time for government officials to take a step back and to empower others, whether it was community health workers or faith leaders,
to engage in that type of conversation.
The people who remain the most trusted by members of the public, by patients and parents, are people's own doctors.
And so I think there's an important role to ensure engagement, particularly of pediatricians, to ensure that the best evidence-based information is transmitted to people.
Great.