Combating vaccine hesitancy through culture and communication

Combating vaccine hesitancy through culture and communication

Mahdi Warsama didn’t live in Minneapolis when Andrew Wakefield, former doctor and prominent vaccine critic, shared his message with the city’s Somali community in 2008 and 2011. But Warsama still deals with the consequences. “It comes up every time we give a speech [or] we go to a gathering,” said Warsama, CEO of the Somali Autism Parent Network. Inevitably, he said, someone mentions the debunked link between vaccines and autism. “As an organiza…