Misleading information about vaccines can harm public health and impose significant costs on the country’s economy. To overcome this challenge, NYU Langone’s Division of Medical Ethics has launched Give One Talk, a vaccine information project in its pilot phase.

Give One Talk is a program designed to teach undergraduate and graduate medical students how to publicly counter vaccine misinformation by providing accurate, scientific information. The program’s goal is to make it a professional obligation for students in health-related fields to address misinformation and disinformation about biomedicine.

Give One Talk team members speak locally—to student groups, religious communities, service organizations, and community centers—as part of a ground-up effort to improve understanding of how vaccines protect individuals, families, and communities from communicable diseases, as well as improve students’ communication skills.

Give One Talk grew out of the High School Bioethics Project, which works to develop curricula to encourage youth interest in bioethics and provide mentorship and instruction via internships for high school students. The project includes lesson plans and learning scenarios on a wide variety of bioethics topics, including vaccine ethics.

Listen to Arthur L. Caplan, PhD and Nathaniel Mamo discuss the Give One Talk project on the FACTSinnated podcast.

Give One Talk Team Members

Arthur L. Caplan, PhD
Lisa Kearns, MS, MA
Nathaniel Mamo, MA
Ayden Eilmus, BA

Educational Resources

The following resources provide information and education for students who are interested in the Give One Talk vaccine information project:

• Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Vaccine Education Center provides accurate and up-to-date information about vaccines.
• The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine offers a Scientist’s Guide to Misinformation with practical steps that scientists can take to identify and address inaccurate scientific claims.
• Kaiser Family Foundation’s Vaccine Monitor provides information about the public’s opinion and experience with COVID-19 vaccines.
• Know Your Vaccines is an independent website that offers information on vaccine ingredients in a simple and easy-to-understand way.

Publications

Carmody ER … Caplan AL. Knowledge and attitudes toward Covid-19 and vaccines among a New York Haredi-Orthodox Jewish community. J Community Health. 2021. DOI.

Evrony A and Caplan A. The overlooked dangers of anti-vaccination groups’ social media presence. Hum Vaccin Immunother. 2017. DOI.

Bruns R … Kirk Sell T. “COVID-19 Vaccine Misinformation and Disinformation Costs an Estimated $50 to $300 Million Each Day.” The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security brief, October 20, 2021.

Contact Us

If your organization would like to request a speaker, or if you are a college or graduate student in a health-related field who is interested in participating as a speaker, contact Lisa Kearns, MS, MA, associate director, at Lisa.Kearns@NYULangone.org.