Adolescents' knowledge of and confidence in vaccines improves with board game play

A long history of misinformation has led to anti-vaccine sentiment, risking everyone's health. Despite public health campaigns, vaccine hesitancy rates have not declined. In response, we created an educational board game to address the fundamental science of vaccine development. The cooperative game guides players through identifying a novel pathogen, developing a vaccine, conducting animal testing, running clinical trials, and distributing doses to the public before the virulence takes over. Players need to work cooperatively, sharing resources in order to win the game; everyone wins or loses together. Developed in consultation with vaccine development researchers, the game retains many of the real world scientific and clinical challenges that face vaccine developers. Assessing students in six different communities in four different mid-west and eastern states in the United States provided access to a diverse demographic. We find that through a pre- post-assessment, students (grades 7-11, n = 304) show significant gains in vaccine knowledge and confidence, demonstrating that fun, gamified learning can improve health literacy. After gameplay, students recognize that the soft skills of being a good communicator, being creative, and sharing resources are important for being a scientist.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s44217-025-00683-4.