Nov. 13 Media Briefing at GSA 2025 in Boston: “Concentric Value of Vaccination: Intersecting Health, Economic, and Societal Benefits”
Media Briefing: Concentric Value of Vaccination: Intersecting Health, Economic, and Societal Benefits
Date: Thursday, November 13, 2025
Time: 12 to 1:15 p.m. ET
Location: The John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center Republic Ballroom B
Registration: GSA 2025 Annual Scientific Meeting media registration is required to attend this event.
Vaccines play a pivotal role in reducing morality and morbidity from a wide variety of once-widespread diseases. Thanks to vaccines, diseases that once claimed millions of lives are now either eradicated or under near-complete control. They provide a myriad of benefits to individuals and to society; they protect us from infectious diseases and increase our life expectancy; they reduce our health care costs and help maintain our productivity at work and at home; and they also help us protect those in our communities who are particularly vulnerable to diseases or who cannot receive vaccinations themselves.
Yet in today’s environment, this life-saving tool has become the subject of public skepticism, leading to reduced immunization rates and the resurgence of preventable diseases.
During this briefing, expert clinicians and researchers will provide a broad overview of how vaccines work, review data on current utilization rates, and discuss how we can reduce vaccine hesitancy and increase the understanding and utilization of vaccines. They will share insights from a new GSA publication that illustrates the concentric value of vaccination, highlighting its health, economic, and societal benefits.
Presenters:
- Stefan Gravenstein, MD, MPH, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
- Michael Baker, MS, MA, American Action Forum
- Carolyn Bridges, MD, FACP, Immunize.org
- Barbara Resnick, PhD, RN, CRNP, FAAN, FAANP, FGSA, University of Maryland School of Nursing
Lunch will be served. This briefing is being organized and conducted by the Gerontological Society of America. Support is provided by CSL Seqirus, GSK, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, and Sanofi.
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The Gerontological Society of America (GSA), founded in 1945, is the nation’s oldest and largest interdisciplinary organization focused on aging. It serves more than 6,000 members in over 50 countries. GSA’s vision, meaningful lives as we age, is supported by its mission to foster excellence, innovation, and collaboration to advance aging research, education, practice, and policy. GSA is home to the National Academy on an Aging Society (a nonpartisan public policy institute) and the National Center to Reframe Aging.