How physicians make vaccine recommendations and why you can trust them

“How do you know your vaccine guidance is still valid? How do I know who to trust?”

As the Chief Medical Officer of the American Academy of Family Physicians and a board-certified family doctor, I get versions of these questions a lot these days. I’ve heard them from patients, other organizations, reporters and other organizations.

They are fair questions. Families are simply trying to make the right decision for their children and themselves, and there is so much misinformation and disinformation out there that determining who to trust can seem difficult.

The good news? Vaccines are established science, and the process for recommending who gets a vaccine and when they get them is a collaborative one. Vaccine recommendations come from published evidence synthesized by independently-funded reviewers. Then, they’re interpreted by family physicians who see patients and who have nothing to sell.

Up and down the line, the participants in this process are concerned with one thing: keeping patients like you safe and healthy.

Step one: Systematic evidence review

The first thing that physicians ask before making decisions about vaccines is simple: what does the evidence say?

Every year, medical journals publish studies about vaccines and their effectiveness, side effects and more. And every year, physicians look at that data to inform their decisions. We call this systematic evidence review and take the data very seriously.

The AAFP’s partner for vaccine evidence review is a nonprofit called the Vaccine Integrity Project. Entirely funded through philanthropy, the VIP conducts systematic reviews and writes evidence briefs about the vaccine data that’s out there. They are assisted by two more groups: the American Medical Association and The Council of Medical Specialty Societies.

All this work and communication is done to maintain the reliability of the findings and to eliminate political and financial influence from the process.

Step two: Immunization guidance

Once the evidence briefs are finalized, the process continues to its next step: family physicians take the scientific data and translate that into recommendations that can be used in the exam room.

The AAFP uses a standard process that includes a team dedicated to reviewing the evidence. This team is called the Vaccine Evidence Review Council, and it’s made up of family physicians with national reputations in evidence review, immunization science and implementation. The VERC works with other AAFP committees to come up with final recommendations, which are reviewed and approved by the AAFP Board of Directors—a group of national family medicine leaders elected by their peers.

In March, the AAFP published its 2026 immunization schedules, and this month we published updated vaccines recommendations for the fall respiratory virus season. These recommendations are the result of all this hard work, and are split into adolescent immunization recommendations and adult immunization recommendations. They include both the yearly respiratory virus recs—like the flu and COVID shots—as well as other vaccines that provide longer coverage.

Step three: Adoption by family physicians

Once the recommendations are final, the AAFP and its partners isn’t done. We work to get them into the hands of your physician and their support team, making sure they know what changes may have occurred since the previous recommendation, why that’s the case and how to communicate it to you.

Your doctor depends on the AAFP and we take that responsibility seriously. We work hard year-round to stay current with the newest products, best practices and most up-to-date science so your family doctor can be confident they are giving you the best advice and vaccine recommendations.  And it means you can be confident making health choices for yourself and for your family.

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