Life expectancy in the United States rose in 2022, the first increase since the COVID pandemic began, according to new federal data. But those gains were not enough to compensate for the years of life lost to the virus, which remains one of the nation’s top causes of death.

Jennifer Nuzzo was interviewed on Scientific American's Your Health, Quickly podcast on declining childhood vaccination rates.

A discussion with Dr. Wilmot James, Senior Advisor to the Pandemic Center

“Misinformation research is a young field, so diverse approaches are good and important,” says Claire Wardle, co-director of the Information Futures Lab, professor of the practice of health services, policy and practice at the Brown University School of Public Health, and a co-author of the study. “What’s also clear is that this field emerged after concerns about the role of misinformation in elections, so many of the key researchers come from political science. As we have seen misinformation impact a number of different topics and issues, it is time researchers from different disciplines investigating misinformation come together to connect the dots.”

The Pandemic Center kicks off Brown Arts IGNITE film and media series with pre-release screening of Scott Hamilton Kennedy’s “Shot in the Arm,” followed by panel discussion.

This article was authored by Pandemic Center Director Jennifer B. Nuzzo and Jorge R. Ledesma and was published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives (Volume 37, Number 4—Fall 2023—Pages 3–22).

Excerpt: ...living with uncertainty is scary. “We can blame the people who are pushing misinformation, but we can’t take away the fact that a lot of this is caused by the absence of answers,” says [Claire] Wardle. “We might not have all the science, but by saying nothing we create vacuums that get filled by conspiracy theories.”

Excerpt: The School of Public Health’s Pandemic Center will host a screening of the new documentary “Shot in the Arm” Monday, Oct. 30 at 6 p.m. Directed by Scott Hamilton Kennedy and executive produced by Neil deGrasse Tyson, the film explores the history of vaccine hesitancy and its relevance in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Our Storied Health Film and Media Series" opens with a screening of 'Shot in the Arm,' a film that explores vaccine hesitancy in COVID-19 and more.

New Testing Playbook provides guide to action to speed equitable access to testing to stop disease spread and save lives

Excerpt: The priority, however, is to get vaccinated before sickness starts spreading. Jennifer Nuzzo, epidemiology professor and director of the Pandemic Center at the Brown University School of Public Health, previously told Inverse that the best time to get inoculated is, essentially, before you’re infected. Of course, when flu, Covid-19, and RSV cases rise in later autumn, you’re much more likely to contract at least one of them.

Excerpt: Naming Omicron subvariants after creatures or asteroids can make them sound more unique or threatening than they are, said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University’s School of Public Health.

“People think this variant is something we’ve never seen before that we’re not going to have immunity against,” she said. “And that’s not at all true.”