The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in August narrowed its recommendation for who should get the COVID-19 vaccine to those 65 and up and others with underlying medical conditions.

The move prompted some states to form regional health coalitions and issue statewide declarations of emergency in hopes of preserving greater vaccine access.

Then, earlier this month, another change: the Centers for Disease Control determined that anyone 6 months and older is eligible for a COVID vaccine, provided they (or their caretaker) first have a conversation with a health care professional.

Amid the changing landscape, little is known about the impact of vaccination policies on individuals’ decisions around vaccines. Two Maxwell School faculty members hope to gather data to fill the unknown in a new research study that is supported with a $25,000 grant.

Brittany L. Kmush and Shana Kushner Gadarian have partnered for the study titled “The Association of State Vaccination Policies with COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in the United States.”

Philanthropy Supporting Research Initiatives

The grant was awarded through a fund created with a gift from Syracuse University alumnus and Maxwell Advisory Board member David Kelso ’68. Kelso, the retired vice chairman for private banking at J.P. Morgan Chase, has generously supported initiatives aimed at providing students applied learning and expanded perspectives, including internships with the Syracuse City Police Department to provide experiential learning and broaden perspectives.

“We are so grateful to David Kelso for utilizing his philanthropy as seed capital to support investments in a range of academic and research initiatives that advance student success and faculty’s evidence-based work to shape more effective policies for the greater public good,” says Dean David M. Van Slyke.

Kelso says support for early-stage research projects can serve as a “force multiplier.” He adds, “Vaccine policies during the COVID pandemic need careful review and statistical analysis to ensure that we learn the lessons of that turbulent and confusing episode to apply in future health crises. I am proud to support the Maxwell School’s cutting-edge health policy research.”

Studying Adult Vaccine Mandate Effectiveness

In addition to seeking a better understanding of the relationship between state vaccination policies and vaccine decision-making, the study will work to close research gaps in how well mandatory vaccination policies work for adults and whether vaccine requirements for a certain disease affect the possibility of getting future vaccines for other diseases. Overall, Kmush and Gadarian say the goal is to examine how different state vaccination policies relate to COVID-19 vaccine uptake and vaccine hesitancy.

The researchers will use longitudinal survey data from the pandemic with information about state vaccine policies. They will consider factors like demographics, access to healthcare and political beliefs.

The researchers predict that while vaccine mandates might increase vaccination in the short term, it could also increase vaccine hesitancy, possibly leading to lower vaccination rates in the future.

Kmush is the project’s principal investigator. She is the director of graduate studies and associate professor of public health. She is a senior research associate at the Center for Policy Research and a research affiliate in the Lerner Center for Public Health Promotion and Population Health.

The study builds on prior research related to COVID-19 vaccines: She recently co-authored a paper titled “Associating Race, Income, and Discrimination with COVID-19 Vaccine Status, Hesitancy, and Access in the United States: A Cross-sectional Study,” which was published in the Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities.

Gadarian, a professor of political science and associate dean for research, is one of four co-investigators on the study. She’s a senior research associate at the Campbell Public Affairs Institute and a research affiliate at the Center for Policy Research and the Lerner Center for Public Health Promotion and Population Health. With the support of a prestigious Carnegie Fellowship, she co-authored Pandemic Politics: The Deadly Toll of Partisanship in the Age of COVID.

In addition to Gadarian, study co-investigators include Rachel Dinero, associate professor of psychology at Le Moyne College; and Timothy Callaghan and Matt Motta, faculty members in the Department of Health Law, Policy and Management at Boston University.

Dustin Hill, a post-doctoral fellow for the Public Health Department at Maxwell, will serve as a research assistant.