Do most people in the world believe that vaccines are safe?
Based on Science
Belief that vaccines are safe is high around the world. Surveys of how people feel about vaccines show that they generally think vaccines are safe.
Last update May 27, 2020
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Most people agree with the statement “Overall, I think vaccines are safe.”
Surveys conducted in 2015 and 2018 with tens of thousands of people around the world both found that the majority of people think that vaccines are safe. In 2018, more than 140,000 people were interviewed in their native languages in more than 140 countries. When asked if they agreed, disagreed, or neither agreed nor disagreed with the statement “vaccines are safe”, 79% responded that they agreed.
People also agree that vaccines are effective and important for children.
Those same surveys found that the majority of people around the world think that vaccines are effective and that it is important for children to get them. In the 2018 survey, 84% of respondents agreed that vaccines are effective at preventing disease. More than 90% agreed that it is important that children get vaccinated.
What people think about vaccines is important to public health.
Positive feelings about vaccine safety and effectiveness and about the importance of vaccines to children’s health translate into high levels of vaccination in communities. That’s important to public health because it provides community protection against many diseases. When most people in a community are vaccinated, contagious diseases have a hard time finding susceptible people to infect. This slows a disease’s ability to spread and protects people who can’t receive a vaccine because they are too young or have medical reasons that prevent them from getting or responding to vaccines.
