Heidi Larson

Heidi J. Larson, Lady Piot is an American anthropologist and the founding director of the Vaccine Confidence Project. Larson headed Global Immunisation Communication at UNICEF and she is the author of Stuck: How Vaccine Rumors Start and Why They Don't Go Away. She was recognized as one of the BBC's 100 women of 2021.

Education and early career
The daughter of a priest and civil rights advocate, Larson grew up in Massachusetts.

Larson worked for Save the Children in the West Bank and in Nepal after college. Working abroad got her interested in anthropology and she eventually graduated from the University of California in that discipline. She earned a Ph.D. in 1990. She worked for several companies in the 1990s, including Apple and Xerox.

Work in immunisation
Larson went back to UNICEF in 2000, working on global communications for several of the agency's vaccination programs. She developed an expertise on working with local health workers to defuse rumors that threatened to derail vaccination initiatives. She founded the Vaccine Confidence Project at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, which she still runs as of 2020, in addition to teaching anthropology, Risk and Decision Science.

Since 2015, Larson has been leading a European Union project to support vaccination efforts in Sierra Leone, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, identifying and countering rumours that may reduce the effectiveness of the campaign. After working on ebola vaccination, the group is now debunking myths about the flu and COVID-19.

Larson is Director of European Initiatives at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) and a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Global Health at the University of Washington. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, she co-chaired (alongside J. Stephen Morrison) the CSIS-LSHTM High-Level Panel on Vaccine Confidence and Misinformation in 2020.

Describing herself as "a patient optimist", Larson understood early that significant efforts had to be made to fight misinformation about vaccines. Former UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said Larson "wasn't yelling 'The sky is falling', she was yelling, 'The sky could fall if we don't do something'".

In a paper published in February 2021, Larson acknowledged extensive collaboration with, advisory board membership of, and funding from, vaccine manufacturers, especially the pharmaceutical companies GlaxoSmithKline and Merck & Co. Inc. She was recognized as one of the BBC's 100 women of 2021.

Other activities

 * Virchow Prize for Global Health, Member of the Council (2022–present)

Personal life
Larson is married to the Belgian virologist Peter Piot.

Selected publications

 * Larson HJ, et al. A mixed-method pilot study to improve patient satisfaction in rural Uganda "Development in Practice" (CDIP) 2018 "(Accepted)"
 * Khalil I, et al. "Transport injuries and deaths in the Eastern Mediterranean Region: findings from the Global Burden of Disease 2015 Study". International Journal of Public Health(2018)
 * Tengbeh AF, Enria L, Smout E,  Mooney T, Callaghan M, Ishola D, Leigh B, Watson-Jones D, Greenwood B, Larson HJ, Lees S. "“We are the heroes because we are ready to die for this country”: Participants' decision-making and grounded ethics in an Ebola vaccine clinical trial." Social Science & Medicine (2018) 203.
 * Larson HJ. "A global girl gang." The Lancet (2018) Volume 391(10120):527–528.
 * Barry M, Talib Z, Jowell A, Thompson K, Moyer C, Larson HJ, Burke K. "A new vision for global health leadership." The Lancet (2017) 390(10112)
 * Akinyemiju TF, et al. "The burden of primary liver cancer and underlying etiologies from 1990 to 2015 at the global, regional, and national level: Results from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015." JAMA Oncology(2017). doi:10.1001/jamaoncol.2017.3055
 * Wang H, et al. "Global, regional, and national under-5 mortality, adult mortality, age-specific mortality, and life expectancy, 1970–2016: a systematic    analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016". The Lancet (2017) 390(10100):1084-1150.
 * Tehrani-Banihashemi A,  et al."Burden of cardiovascular diseases in the Eastern Mediterranean Region, 1990–2015: Findings from the Global Burden of Disease 2015 study". International Journal of Public Health (2017) August 3 doi: 10.1007/s00038-017-1012-3.
 * Wilson RJ, Chantler T, Lees S, Larson HJ. "The Patient–Healthcare Worker Relationship: How Does it Affect Patient Views towards Vaccination during Pregnancy?"Research in the sociology of health care (2017) 35:59-77. (Also in book: "Health and Health Care Concerns Among Women and Racial and Ethnic Minorities)"
 * Eakle R, Bourne A, Jarrett C, Stadler J, Larson H. "Motivations and barriers to uptake and use of female-initiated, biomedical HIV prevention products in sub-Saharan Africa: an adapted meta-ethnography" BMC Public Health (2017) 17:968
 * Francis MR, Nohynek H, "Larson H," Balraj V, Mohan VR, Kang G, Nuorti P. "Factors associated with routine childhood vaccine uptake and reasons for non-vaccination in India: 1998–2008"". Vaccine" 2017 "(in press)"
 * Paterson P,Tracey Chantler T, "Larson HJ".  "Reasons for non-vaccination: Parental vaccine hesitancy and the childhood influenza vaccination school pilot programme in England." "Vaccine" 2017 ("in press)"
 * Karafillakis E, "Larson HJ". "The benefit of the doubt or doubts over benefits? A systematic literature review of perceived risks of vaccines in European populations". "Vaccine" 35 (2017) 4840–4850
 * Kummervold PE,  Schulz WS, Smout E, Luis Fernandez-Luque L, "Larson HJ". "Controversial Ebola vaccine trials in Ghana: A thematic analysis of critiques and rebuttals in digital news". "BMC Public Health" 2017; 17(1):642.
 * Pan XF, Li R, Pan A, "Larson HJ." "Human papillomavirus vaccine approval in China a major step forward but challenges ahead". "" "Lancet Infectious Diseases." 2016; 16:1322-23.
 * Larson HJ. "Japanese media and the HPV vaccine saga." "Clinical Infectious Diseases" 2016";" 64(4)"."
 * Wilson R, "Larson HJ", Paterson P. "Understanding factors influencing vaccination acceptance during pregnancy in Hackney, London". "The Lancet"    2016; 388:S112
 * Forouzanfar MH, Afshin A, · Alexander LT ... "Larson HJ"…..Murray CJL. "Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 79 behavioral, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks, 1990–2015: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015". "The    Lancet" 388(10053):1659-1724.
 * Haidong W, Naghavi M, Allen C……"Larson HJ"….  Murray CJL. "Global, regional, and national life expectancy, all-cause mortality, and cause-specific mortality for 249 causes of death, 1980–2015: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015". "The Lancet"  388(10053):1459-1544.
 * Wang H, BhuttaZA,Coates MM…"Larson HJ"….Murray CJL. "Global, regional, national, and selected subnational levels of stillbirths, neonatal, infant, and under-5 mortality, 1980–2015: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015". "The Lancet"  388(10053):1725-1774.