# Vaccine hesitancy and erosion of herd immunity: harnessing big data to forecast disease re-emergence

> **NIH NIH R01** · GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $663,997

## Abstract

Project Summary
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 1.5 million deaths among children under 5 years are
due to vaccine-preventable diseases (VPDs), predominantly in the developing world where achieving vaccine
coverage necessary for elimination has proved a challenge. Surprisingly, even in wealthy countries such as the
United States, herd immunity has proved elusive despite historically high vaccine coverage. This is in large part
due to the phenomenon of vaccine hesitancy, or the desire to delay or refuse vaccination, which poses a barrier
to covering the last mile in global disease eradication efforts for VPDs such as measles and polio. Achieving
the “endgame” will require early detection of vaccine hesitancy, as well as a clear understanding of the impact
of this behavior on the (re)emergence and spread of VPDs. What is urgently needed is a means of integrating
disparate data sources within a mechanistic transmission model in order to quantify population immunity and
discriminate among alternative courses of action. The proposed work aims to harness the potential of a unique
high-resolution data set of medical claims to geographically localize vaccination hesitancy, to identify its socio-
economic drivers, and dissect the epidemiological consequences of this behavior with measles and pertussis as
case studies. Ultimately, our goal is to develop a predictive model for the spatial and temporal dynamics of both
vaccination behavior and the incidence of affected infectious diseases. Such a model will be key in our ability to
forecast disease re-emergence and design public health policy to positively change the vaccination landscape.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9985933
- **Project number:** 5R01GM123007-04
- **Recipient organization:** GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Shweta Bansal
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $663,997
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-09-16 → 2022-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9985933

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9985933, Vaccine hesitancy and erosion of herd immunity: harnessing big data to forecast disease re-emergence (5R01GM123007-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9985933. Licensed CC0.

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