Most Americans Still Say Vaccines Are Important, but the Consensus Is Weakening

The American public’s polarizing response to the COVID-19 vaccine rollout set off alarm bells among public health officials worried about the consequences for broader inoculation efforts, fears that only mounted when vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. became secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services earlier this year.

Morning Consult trend data suggests those fears are well-founded: Though most Americans still believe most common vaccines are important, that percentage has dropped since 2022 — especially among women.

According to our Sept. 27-29 survey, at least 7 in 10 U.S. adults said vaccines to fend off measles, the flu, chickenpox, polio and mumps are “very” or “somewhat” important, followed by more than 3 in 5 who said the same of shots for whooping cough, rubella and COVID-19.

As with many things these days, partisanship colors public sentiment, with the biggest gap in perceived importance coming on the COVID-19 shot, which was developed under the Trump administration in 2020 but panned by many in right-wing circles when distributed by the Biden administration in 2021.

While 81% of Democrats said the COVID-19 vaccine is important, just 51% of Republicans agree. That 30-point gap is nearly twice the size of the divide on perceptions of vaccines for measles or whooping cough, though clear majorities of Republicans still say they’re least somewhat important.

Those partisan divides endure at similar levels to what we measured back in 2022, but what has changed over the past few years is that women — especially those who are Republicans — have become less likely to see vaccines as important than men, marking a reversal.

Since 2022, women have become less likely to say vaccines are important for illnesses such as polio (78% to 69%), measles (79% to 72%) and chickenpox (77% to 71%), erasing the gender gap in support for the shots that are mainly distributed to children.

Among Republican women, the movement’s been even larger, including double-digit drops in the perceived importance of shots to ward off measles, polio and chickenpox. This leaves Republican women less likely than their male counterparts to give credence to the usefulness of the treatments as Kennedy — a popular and prominent figure on the right — has overseen an agency that has raised questions about the safety of childhood inoculations.

On the left, the movement among gender was less drastic. Democratic women are 9 percentage points less likely today to see the polio vaccine as important than they were in 2022 (84% to 75%), effectively matching where Democratic men stand on the matter. And Democratic men and women alike are 8 points less likely to see the COVID-19 shots as important, leading to a significant drop in the shares of Democrats who said they plan to get a booster in the coming year.

Less than 2 in 3 Democrats said they plan to get a COVID-19 booster over the next year, down from 75% who said the same in 2022. As was the case three years ago, women are less likely to say they will get the COVID-19 booster, though men’s and women’s interest has declined at a similar rate.

The bottom line

That the perceived importance of a variety of vaccinations continues to decline is the latest proofpoint that the COVID-19 pandemic could in time be remembered as a crossing of the Rubicon for the frontier of public health.

But the information war over vaccines isn’t over, and the scientific community still has a chance to arrest the declining faith in inoculations. As we showed you last week, the Trump administration’s attacks on the scientific community have done nothing to shake the public’s confidence in it, giving advocates a leg-up in the fight against anti-vaccine efforts.

What’s more, with a solid majority of Americans still in support of most critical vaccinations, there’s evidence of a materializing backlash to the backlash when it comes to vaccine policy. Take, for example, the national public’s response to Florida’s recent move to end requirements that its residents, including children, be vaccinated against diseases such as chickenpox, mumps and measles.

A clear majority of Americans nationwide oppose Florida’s new policy, including more than 1 in 3 Republicans. And contrary to the gender divide among Americans on the importance of various shots, women are more likely than men to oppose the policy (61% to 51%). Republican women are almost evenly divided, with 43% in favor and 40% opposed, compared to a double-digit support advantage among GOP men.

That leaves public health advocates and their supporters with an effective wedge issue to try to restore confidence in vaccines, especially if other conservative states follow Florida’s lead.