A new study published by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania and funded by the Robert Wood Johnson foundation shows that when people were shown a chart detailing the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) vaccine approval process, they were more likely to recommend the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine to pregnant friends and family.
The experiment took place during a May 31 through June 6, 2023, national panel survey of 1,601 adults on RSV, vaccination, and maternal health issues.
Though the FDA has yet to approve an RSV vaccine for use in pregnancy, recent approvals of vaccine candidates from GSK and Pfizer for adults aged 60 and up mean a candidate for use in pregnancy may be inevitable.
Among survey participants shown a flow chart detailing the FDA vaccine approval process, 57% said they would be very likely or somewhat likely to recommend an RSV vaccine to a pregnant person. Only 40% of participants in a control group not shown the chart said they would make the same recommendation. In a third group not shown a chart but told of the risks of RSV in early infancy, 58% said they would recommend the vaccine.
"The public would be well served if the press were to remind the public of this review process when a new vaccine is announced and vigilantly monitor it to ensure that it is doing its intended job well," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, PhD, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center and director of the survey, in a press release.
RSV typically causes a cold-like illness for most healthy adults but can be severe in newborns. A vaccine administered in pregnancy would pass maternal antibodies to the newborn for up to 6 months, at which point the risk of severe RSV is significantly lower.