Gregory Hurter on Vaccine Hesitancy

Written by: Mia Cooper

Last week was world Immunization week. World immunization week is a campaign established in 2012 by the World Health Organization. It acts as a global campaign to spread awareness about the efficacy and importance of vaccines as well as encourage governments to strengthen immunization programs and policies. Vaccines are essential in helping to prevent so many life-threatening illnesses. Vaccines have contributed to a 40% improvement in infant survival over the past 50 years, highlighting their critical role as life-saving tools (WHO, 2025). Vaccines work as a preventive measure and work with the body to help prevent illness. Vaccines imitate illness to stimulate the creation of antibodies. Antibodies are like tiny doctors that attack a virus when it enters the body. If antibodies are created before a person comes into contact with a virus, they won't get sick! Vaccines are the armor that keep us safe from disease.

Although vaccines are well researched and trusted within the medical community, they have been contested as misinformation has spread regarding their safety. It can be difficult for individuals to fish out the correct information about vaccines when misinformation is at the forefront of the conversation. This week we wanted to dive deeper into why people are vaccine hesitant and talk about how to combat that. 

Gregory Hurter is a Masters in Public Health Student studying Global Health at Brown SPH

 Gregory Hurter, a first year Masters of Public Health Student, studying at Brown University has studied vaccine hesitancy and global vaccine access including the MRNA Hub for the past few years. As a freshman at Saint Michael College in the fall of 2020, Hurter became interested in the variance between why some individuals would willingly get vaccinated and why other would not. He worked with other students to collect data from eight colleges and 2.308 students in the state of Vermont regarding their vaccine status, their skepticism towards the mandates, and their beliefs in the efficacy of vaccines in general.

While their original goal was to look just at their small liberal arts college, the interest grew to looking across the entire state of VT.

Since their work occurred during the height of the first vaccine roll-out, they focused on vaccine preferences, school regulations, and reasons for exemptions. They divided their findings up more specifically to look at race, sex,gender, educational level, and affiliated college and university. Hurter also took initiative to work on this project further and conducted qualitative interviews with school administrators and wellness center employees regarding their opinions on vaccine hesitancy.

While conducting their research, they found that 21% of the student population was hesitant to get vaccines or didn't want to get them at all. While a majority of their sample was already vaccinated, 24%  stated that they were skeptical of the benefits of vaccines. Although Vermont itself had a high vaccination rate and the messaging and marketing about getting vaccinated was positive, Hurter found it interesting to look at the opinions of college students who were coming from across the country where political messaging and general health beliefs may differ.

Hurter shared that the most interesting part of his research was the qualitative interviews that revealed a bit more why people were or were not getting vaccinated, and what exceptions schools allowed. He explained that many students were able to avoid a vaccine mandate due to a religious exemption. “We learned that a religious exemption is really hard to define,” Hurter shared, “One school required students to get a signature from their religious leader.”. He told me that most people who didn’t get vaccinated marked that it was due to a religious exemption or a lack of perceived safety. “People were skeptical of the short term turn around” He said “Its a fine line to walk for institutions to walk when trying to protect their student bodies and also not infringe on peoples opinions”

Gregory Hurter at his graduation from Saint Micahel's college in Spring of 2024

With an increasing amount of vaccine hesitancy in the United States right now, I wanted to ask Hurter what he thought were the biggest barriers to vaccine access. He mentioned a few  major issues; geographical location (and lack of transportation), medical distrust and misinformation, a lack of health literacy, and miscommunication between public health officials and primary care practitioners (PCPs). If individuals live too far from clinics or do not have a way to get there, they may not get their vaccines. Individuals may also be nervous about misinformation or conflicting commentaries regarding the safety and efficacy of vaccines. It is important to work with public health officials, community health workers, PCPs, and religious and political leaders to ensure their patients/clients are receiving true information about vaccines. 

“It would be beneficial to have positive and deliberate information campaigns to promote vaccination” Hurter shared. He mentioned how these could be done by CHWs in multiple languages and promoted in rural areas. “It is important that PCPs get on the same page as public health officials to ensure that their patients understand vaccine schedules and that the information is delivered to them in an accessible manner.” Hurter shared that vaccines also need to be free. While many already are, not having access to health insurance or coverage is a barrier for people to get vaccinated.

Hurter will be interning at the commissioners office for Maines DHHS this summer to work on current policy issues including expanding healthcare access in rural Maine and one day hopes to pursue a PhD in Global Health Policy.  His work in understanding the barriers to vaccines and promoting health equity in rural areas is an important piece of public health expansion. Check out the links below to learn a bit more about vaccines.