Vaccination has been a hot-button topic recently, not just in pharmacy, but health care in general. August is National Immunization Awareness Month, and this year, the importance of vaccination is greater than ever. National Immunization Awareness Month aims to increase awareness about the importance of vaccination for community members.1
This month is National Immunization Awareness Month, highlighting the importance of pharmacists in educating patients on vaccination. | Image Credit: Dusan Petkovic – stock.adobe.com
Earlier in 2025, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. removed all 17 members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, replacing them with his own appointees. He wrote in the Wall Street Journal, “Without removing the current members, the current Trump administration would not have been able to appoint a majority of new members until 2028.”2
Kevin Cleveland, PharmD, professor at Idaho State University, said the impact of this decision will affect health care providers’ trust in federal health entities.3
“We’re going to have to resort to our tried [and] tested process of literature evaluation,” Cleveland said.3 “We should always be doing that anyways, but I think we’re going to have to be more diligent about that. I think the other thing is that we’re going to have to rely a little bit more on our associations, such as [the] American Pharmacists Association [and the] American Medical Association, to help us navigate some of that.”
Pharmacists play an important role in helping patients navigate vaccination needs, according to Cherokee Layson-Wolf, PharmD, BCACP, FAPhA, professor of practice, sciences, and health outcomes research at the University of Maryland. Trust between patients and pharmacists has been well established, so Layson-Wolf said it is important to let patients know they can still ask their health care providers questions.4
“The very first thing we need to do as pharmacists is to understand the concern that our patients have and to share information with them if they’re willing,” Layson-Wolf said.4 “We really have to work together as health care providers and we can hopefully answer our patients’ questions well.”
Communication between pharmacists and patients can help educate on the importance of vaccination, especially as policies continue to change rapidly and questionable information floods social media.
“I’m encouraging patients to talk to trusted health care professionals and to not get their advice from social media or the internet or other strangers, focusing on the fact that vaccines have been studied before, during, and after FDA approval,” Laura Knockel, PharmD, BCACP, clinical associate professor at Iowa College of Pharmacy, said.5 “They’re more rigorously tested than any other medications because we give them to healthy people, so we have a very, very low tolerance for risk for adverse events.”
As respiratory season approaches, pharmacists are in a prime position to help educate patients on immunization for respiratory illnesses, including influenza, COVID-19, and respiratory syncytial virus.
“Pharmacists and pharmacies play a very important role in keeping their communities healthy with services such as immunizations,” Layson-Wolf said.4 “It’s also important for the general public to understand what these changes may mean for them and that there is a long-term impact on our health in the US as a result of these recent events.”
READ MORE: National Immunization Awareness Month
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