Episode
Testing New Strategies to Increase Vaccination Coverage
- Podcast
- GiveWell Conversations
- Published
- Feb 19, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 2202
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://share.transistor.fm/s/08c54fc9
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Summary
Vaccines are remarkably effective at preventing deadly diseases, and, while global needs for them are great, vaccines already receive substantial global funding. This creates a challenge: How do you identify opportunities where additional funding can meaningfully increase vaccination rates and save lives? GiveWell has long recognized the potential for highly cost-effective vaccine programs. We started supporting vaccination programs in 2015 and have made over $200 million in vaccination-related grants to date. For example, New Incentives, one of our Top Charities, aims to increase routine childhood vaccinations in northern Nigeria by providing small cash incentives to caregivers who bring their children into clinics for vaccinations. Over the past several years, we’ve been growing our research team and laying the groundwork to expand the scope of our work and funding. In this episode, GiveWell CEO and co-founder Elie Hassenfeld speaks with Senior Program Officer Natalie Crispin, who leads GiveWell’s vaccination grantmaking. They discuss how our research approach has evolved and what it means for helping more children access life-saving vaccinations. Elie and Natalie discuss: Moving from finding existing programs to targeting funding gaps: In the past, GiveWell primarily looked for specific, evidence-backed program types to support—such as conditional cash transfers that incentivize vaccination. Now, with a dedicated vaccines team, we ask a bigger question: What are the bottlenecks that prevent children from getting vaccinated and how can we address them? This shift has driven our funding in areas like vaccination outreach, where teams travel to remote communities to deliver vaccines. Building a grantmaking portfolio to maximize learning: GiveWell recently funded severa…