Flu Vaccines on College Campuses: Survey of Challenges and Local Intervention

College campuses are particular causes for concern each flu season because of the close and constant proximity of community members. Limited existing research suggests that, like the general population, this subpopulation is undervaccinated, and inaccurate perception of the safety, efficacy, and necessity of the vaccine plays a large part. In this paper, we introduce a simple cost-benefit model of the decision to obtain the vaccine and use it to motivate a research design similar to those of health disparities work. We administer an attitude survey to the Yale community, run a publicity campaign aimed at increasing flu vaccine uptake, and obtain uptake data from peer institutions to estimate the impact of the intervention through a difference-in-differences approach. Although these efforts were limited in scope, and a statistically significant effect was not found, we corroborated existing results about college flu vaccines and identified substantial variation in university investment and policy towards vaccination.