Current national surveys lack sufficient data to understand vaccination intent and receipt.

Seasonal influenza causes a substantial respiratory disease burden each year, and the potential for continued spread or resurgence of COVID-19 this flu season makes it even more important to maximize vaccination coverage. Concurrent epidemics of COVID-19 and influenza could overwhelm an already-taxed health care system and cause severe social and economic disruption. Vaccination coverage is generally assessed using large surveys of U.S. adults, but because these surveys are conducted annually, they cannot provide timely insights into vaccine estimates during heightened disease seasons. Additionally, these surveys do not ask questions about individuals attitudes and opinions related to the vaccines that can be incredibly valuable for developing strategies and health communication messaging to increase confidence in vaccines.

NORC’s AmeriSpeak Omnibus Panel provides deeper context to behaviors regarding vaccines.

This multi-year project with funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention used NORC’s AmeriSpeak® Omnibus panel to rapidly assess knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors related to influenza and COVID-19 vaccines. Questions added to the twice-monthly NORC AmeriSpeak Omnibus survey are intended to provide rapid measures of vaccination status to compare with other administrative and survey estimates, as well as provide deeper context and understanding into adults’ vaccination intent or hesitations, perceptions of safety, and reasons or motivations for vaccinating or not vaccinating that can be important for informing public health strategies to increase vaccination coverage overall and among key priority populations in order to improve public health.