Americans who regularly get their news from right-wing media outlets are more than twice as likely to be hesitant about vaccines, according to a new survey by researchers at Johns Hopkins University. The findings, based on responses from 2,970 US adults, highlight a stark divide in health attitudes that is closely tied to how and where people choose to consume information. While the majority of participants still believe the benefits of the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine outweigh the risks of infection, and just one in six expressed hesitancy, the link between media habits and vaccine scepticism is described by the study’s authors as “strong”.
The survey, conducted by the Johns Hopkins Centre for Systems Science and Engineering, found that vaccine-hesitant adults were far more likely to rely on right-leaning “new media” channels and non-authoritative sources for health information. These sources include social media influencers and newsletters from the Children’s Health Defence (CHD), the non-profit activist group founded by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has long promoted anti-vaccine narratives. “Our work reveals a strong association between people’s specific media habits and their attitudes towards vaccination,” said Lauren Gardner, director of the centre and co-creator of the widely used Covid-19 dashboard. “Our findings suggest that when everyone is already engaging online, where and how they choose to do so matters.” Non-hesitant adults, in contrast, were significantly less likely to obtain information from such non-authoritative sources and were more likely to rely on physicians — a pattern the researchers describe as having a “protective effect” against vaccine hesitancy. The study acknowledges its cross-sectional nature means it cannot establish causation, leaving open the possibility that sceptical individuals may simply seek out confirming media, rather than the media shaping their views.
Demographics of vaccine hesitancy
The survey also painted a clear demographic picture of those most likely to be hesitant. Vaccine-hesitant adults were more likely to be younger, parents, from racial minorities, lower-income and less educated. Politically, nearly 40 per cent identified with the Republican Party and 33 per cent as Independents. Notably, the survey found a strong association with the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement, a phrase associated with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and described by critics as thriving on science denialism and opposing public health tools such as vaccines. Some 43 per cent of hesitant adults identified with MAHA, compared with 27 per cent of non-hesitant adults. A separate KFF/Washington Post survey has indicated that parents who support MAHA are also more likely to trust Kennedy for vaccine information. Despite these divides, overall news consumption levels were similar across the board: 87 per cent of participants said they followed the news, and nearly everyone reported being online at least once a day.
Solutions and the public health response
To improve vaccination rates, the Johns Hopkins researchers argue that health communicators must focus on guiding the public towards reliable sources of information. “With public health becoming increasingly polarized, it’s critical to understand people’s attitudes about vaccines, and this work suggests people’s media preferences play an outsized role in influencing those attitudes,” said Amelia Jamison, an assistant research scientist at Johns Hopkins who studies health communication. The survey reinforces the idea that relying on experts — particularly physicians — can serve as a buffer against misinformation. But the stakes are high: vaccine hesitancy has been cited as a key factor in the resurgence of measles, a disease that can lead to brain swelling and death, especially in young children. The MMR vaccine is 97 per cent effective after two doses, yet national coverage in the US stands at around 93 per cent — below the 95 per cent threshold needed to prevent the spread of the virus.
Utah has become an epicentre of US measles outbreaks, with more than 600 cases in an ongoing outbreak that began last year. According to state data, 514 of those cases were in unvaccinated individuals, and many have been linked to schools. While Utah law requires public school students to have two doses of the MMR vaccine, parents can opt out for personal, religious or medical reasons. The state’s non-medical exemption rate among young children is already higher than the national average, according to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Vaccination rates need to be above 95 per cent to limit transmission, and the current national figure shows a gap that leaves communities vulnerable.
Past outbreaks have shown that vaccination can be an effective tool even against highly contagious viruses. South Carolina experienced a massive outbreak of 997 cases from October 2025 to March 2026 — the worst in the US in over 35 years — but it spurred a 31.3 per cent increase in statewide MMR vaccinations. “Vaccination – combined with other opportunities for good, solid public health work – really can be effective, even against some of the most contagious viruses,” Dr. Brannon Traxler, deputy director and chief medical officer with the South Carolina Department of Public Health, said at a news briefing last Wednesday. Similarly, a large regional outbreak across Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma in early 2025 resulted in 762 confirmed cases and three deaths, primarily among unvaccinated children and teenagers. The majority of measles cases recorded during last year’s historic influx – the most since the disease was eliminated in the US in 2000 – were in unvaccinated people, according to federal data. Despite these lessons, coverage nationwide is not where it should be to prevent future outbreaks, and measles infections continue to spread in Utah, where at least 10 per cent of in-person kindergarten students had an MMR vaccine exemption or missing documentation for the 2024-2025 school year. In 2025, the CDC reported 2,288 confirmed measles cases across 45 jurisdictions, with many tied to pockets of unvaccinated individuals.
