This month, I begin my role as Director with NH Families for Vaccines, working to mobilize New Hampshire’s pro-vaccine majority at a time when public health has become both politicized and misunderstood.
I step into this role not only as an advocate, but as someone shaped by a family tradition that valued public health long before it was controversial. My grandmother and I share a birthday. She was a nurse, part of a generation that saw firsthand what infectious disease could do before vaccines were widely available. In my family, protecting community health wasn’t a partisan position. It was common sense. It was care, and it was responsibility.
Despite the loudness of anti-vaccine rhetoric, the reality is that most Granite Staters support routine childhood immunizations. Most parents want their children protected. Most people understand that vaccines have saved millions of lives and remain one of the most effective public health tools we have.
Majorities don’t matter if they aren’t organized. Over the past several years, a small but vocal minority has shaped legislation, and public discourse by showing up consistently and strategically. Meanwhile, the pro-vaccine majority made up of parents, health professionals, educators, faith leaders and everyday citizens, has often assumed that science speaks for itself.
Public health requires participation. It requires advocacy. It requires people who believe in evidence-based policy to make their voices heard in hearings, town halls, school board meetings and elections.
Mobilizing the pro-vaccine majority isn’t about silencing debate. It’s about ensuring that policy reflects sound science, community wellbeing and the lived realities of families who depend on safe schools and strong healthcare systems.
Vaccines are not just a personal choice — they are a public trust. They protect newborns too young to be vaccinated. They protect cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. They protect elderly neighbors and medically vulnerable classmates. When vaccination rates decline, outbreaks follow. We have seen it happen across the country.
I believe that New Hampshire can do better. My goal in this role is simple: to unite the quiet majority who believe in prevention, science and protecting one another. That means equipping people with clear, science-based information and organizing the pro-vaccine majority to lead rather than simply react.
Public health is deeply local. It shows up in the school nurse, at the pediatrician’s office and in the working parent who cannot afford to miss two weeks of work because of a preventable illness spreading through a classroom.
For me, this work is both professional and personal. I think of my grandmother, her belief in care grounded in science, her understanding that prevention saves lives quietly and without applause. That legacy reminds me that defending public health isn’t about politics; it’s about people.
The pro-vaccine majority exists. It’s time to organize, mobilize and lead.
Alyson Fava is the director for the New Hampshire chapter of American Families for Vaccines.