Evidence Navigator · Designed for thoughtful parents

See the tradeoffs, not just the recommendation.

Adjust your family's situation and compare disease risk, vaccine benefit, known side effects, and evidence confidence — side by side.

6Vaccine cards in V1
4+Independent evidence sources
100%Score formulas visible

Educational tool only. Not medical advice. Always discuss vaccination decisions with your child's pediatrician.

Your Family's Scenario

Adjust these once — all vaccine cards update instantly.

6–12m
Birth1 yr3 yr6 yr9 yr12 yr
92%
Lower local coverage increases exposure risk for everyone.

Vaccine overview cards

Each card answers one question fast: what happens if I give this vaccine, and what happens if I skip it? Click See both sides on any card to compare.

Timing-sensitiveHigh evidence confidence

Hepatitis B

44 years in use · 3 doses · Hepatitis B, Liver cirrhosis

Net benefit
iNet benefit combines disease consequence, exposure risk, vaccine effectiveness, and vaccine risk into a single 0–100 score. Higher is better.

How this score is built: It weights the harm of getting the disease vs. the risk of the vaccine, adjusted for your family's scenario inputs.

for your current scenario

11
Exposure riskiProbability of encountering this disease given your scenario. Higher means more likely to be exposed.62
Disease harmiSeverity of the disease if contracted: hospitalization rate, mortality, chronic complications, quality of life impact.100
Vaccine riskiRisk from the vaccine itself — adverse events weighted by probability and severity. A low number means the vaccine has a strong safety profile.8
Evidence confidenceiQuality and consensus of the research behind this vaccine: study types, sample sizes, years of data, reproducibility.96
Known serious risk: very low

Without vaccine

  • Exposure: ~140 cases per 100k/yr unvaccinated
  • Hospitalization: 15% of infections
  • Mortality: 25 per 100k infected
  • Chronic sequelae: 90%
  • Chronic hepatitis B requires lifelong monitoring and often antiviral medication. Cirrhosis causes fatigue, jaundice, flu…

With vaccine

  • Effectiveness: 99% against severe disease
  • Exposure: ~1.4 cases per 100k/yr vaccinated
  • Common side effects: injection site soreness, low-grade fever (self-limiting)
  • Rare serious events: 2 documented (see full analysis for incidence rates)
  • Immunity appears lifelong for most vaccinated individuals. Booster not currently recommended for imm…
Timing-sensitiveHigh evidence confidence

DTaP

30 years in use · 5 doses · Diphtheria, Tetanus (Lockjaw)

Net benefit
iNet benefit combines disease consequence, exposure risk, vaccine effectiveness, and vaccine risk into a single 0–100 score. Higher is better.

How this score is built: It weights the harm of getting the disease vs. the risk of the vaccine, adjusted for your family's scenario inputs.

for your current scenario

36
Exposure riskiProbability of encountering this disease given your scenario. Higher means more likely to be exposed.92
Disease harmiSeverity of the disease if contracted: hospitalization rate, mortality, chronic complications, quality of life impact.100
Vaccine riskiRisk from the vaccine itself — adverse events weighted by probability and severity. A low number means the vaccine has a strong safety profile.14
Evidence confidenceiQuality and consensus of the research behind this vaccine: study types, sample sizes, years of data, reproducibility.90
Modeled vaccine harm: low

Without vaccine

  • Exposure: ~480 cases per 100k/yr unvaccinated
  • Hospitalization: 35% of infections
  • Mortality: 150 per 100k infected
  • Chronic sequelae: 5%
  • Pertussis in infants causes apnea, cyanosis, and convulsions from hypoxia. Survivors may have neurological injury. Tetan…

With vaccine

  • Effectiveness: 95% against severe disease
  • Exposure: ~48 cases per 100k/yr vaccinated
  • Common side effects: injection site soreness, low-grade fever (self-limiting)
  • Rare serious events: 2 documented (see full analysis for incidence rates)
  • Pertussis immunity wanes more rapidly than diphtheria/tetanus — significant waning by 4–6 years afte…
Timing-sensitiveHigh evidence confidence

Hib

35 years in use · 4 doses · Hib meningitis, Hib pneumonia

Net benefit
iNet benefit combines disease consequence, exposure risk, vaccine effectiveness, and vaccine risk into a single 0–100 score. Higher is better.

How this score is built: It weights the harm of getting the disease vs. the risk of the vaccine, adjusted for your family's scenario inputs.

for your current scenario

0
Exposure riskiProbability of encountering this disease given your scenario. Higher means more likely to be exposed.39
Disease harmiSeverity of the disease if contracted: hospitalization rate, mortality, chronic complications, quality of life impact.100
Vaccine riskiRisk from the vaccine itself — adverse events weighted by probability and severity. A low number means the vaccine has a strong safety profile.5
Evidence confidenceiQuality and consensus of the research behind this vaccine: study types, sample sizes, years of data, reproducibility.95
Known serious risk: very low

Without vaccine

  • Exposure: ~75 cases per 100k/yr unvaccinated
  • Hospitalization: 100% of infections
  • Mortality: 450 per 100k infected
  • Chronic sequelae: 25%
  • Hib meningitis survivors who escape death often face lifelong hearing loss (requiring hearing aids or cochlear implants)…

With vaccine

  • Effectiveness: 98% against severe disease
  • Exposure: ~0.4 cases per 100k/yr vaccinated
  • Common side effects: injection site soreness, low-grade fever (self-limiting)
  • Rare serious events: 1 documented (see full analysis for incidence rates)
  • Immunity from conjugate vaccine is long-lasting. No booster required after complete infant series fo…
Timing-sensitiveHigh evidence confidence

PCV (Prevnar)

24 years in use · 4 doses · Pneumococcal meningitis, Pneumococcal pneumonia

Net benefit
iNet benefit combines disease consequence, exposure risk, vaccine effectiveness, and vaccine risk into a single 0–100 score. Higher is better.

How this score is built: It weights the harm of getting the disease vs. the risk of the vaccine, adjusted for your family's scenario inputs.

for your current scenario

26
Exposure riskiProbability of encountering this disease given your scenario. Higher means more likely to be exposed.81
Disease harmiSeverity of the disease if contracted: hospitalization rate, mortality, chronic complications, quality of life impact.100
Vaccine riskiRisk from the vaccine itself — adverse events weighted by probability and severity. A low number means the vaccine has a strong safety profile.10
Evidence confidenceiQuality and consensus of the research behind this vaccine: study types, sample sizes, years of data, reproducibility.88
Known serious risk: very low

Without vaccine

  • Exposure: ~160 cases per 100k/yr unvaccinated
  • Hospitalization: 100% of infections
  • Mortality: 250 per 100k infected
  • Chronic sequelae: 30%
  • Pneumococcal meningitis survivors face the same grim sequelae as Hib meningitis: hearing loss, cognitive impairment, epi…

With vaccine

  • Effectiveness: 94% against severe disease
  • Exposure: ~20 cases per 100k/yr vaccinated
  • Common side effects: injection site soreness, low-grade fever (self-limiting)
  • Rare serious events: 1 documented (see full analysis for incidence rates)
  • Long-lasting immunity against vaccine serotypes. PCV13 replaced PCV7 due to serotype replacement — n…
Timing-sensitiveHigh evidence confidence

MMR

55 years in use · 2 doses · Measles, Mumps

Net benefit
iNet benefit combines disease consequence, exposure risk, vaccine effectiveness, and vaccine risk into a single 0–100 score. Higher is better.

How this score is built: It weights the harm of getting the disease vs. the risk of the vaccine, adjusted for your family's scenario inputs.

for your current scenario

48
Exposure riskiProbability of encountering this disease given your scenario. Higher means more likely to be exposed.99
Disease harmiSeverity of the disease if contracted: hospitalization rate, mortality, chronic complications, quality of life impact.100
Vaccine riskiRisk from the vaccine itself — adverse events weighted by probability and severity. A low number means the vaccine has a strong safety profile.16
Evidence confidenceiQuality and consensus of the research behind this vaccine: study types, sample sizes, years of data, reproducibility.97
Modeled vaccine harm: low

Without vaccine

  • Exposure: ~2200 cases per 100k/yr unvaccinated
  • Hospitalization: 25% of infections
  • Mortality: 200 per 100k infected
  • Chronic sequelae: 8%
  • Measles causes 'immune amnesia' — destroying immunity memory cells and increasing vulnerability to other infections for …

With vaccine

  • Effectiveness: 99% against severe disease
  • Exposure: ~11 cases per 100k/yr vaccinated
  • Common side effects: injection site soreness, low-grade fever (self-limiting)
  • Rare serious events: 3 documented (see full analysis for incidence rates)
  • Two doses provide lifelong immunity for the vast majority. A small percentage (<3%) of vaccinated in…
Timing-sensitiveHigh evidence confidence

Rotavirus

19 years in use · 3 doses · Rotavirus gastroenteritis, Severe dehydration

Net benefit
iNet benefit combines disease consequence, exposure risk, vaccine effectiveness, and vaccine risk into a single 0–100 score. Higher is better.

How this score is built: It weights the harm of getting the disease vs. the risk of the vaccine, adjusted for your family's scenario inputs.

for your current scenario

3
Exposure riskiProbability of encountering this disease given your scenario. Higher means more likely to be exposed.100
Disease harmiSeverity of the disease if contracted: hospitalization rate, mortality, chronic complications, quality of life impact.78
Vaccine riskiRisk from the vaccine itself — adverse events weighted by probability and severity. A low number means the vaccine has a strong safety profile.18
Evidence confidenceiQuality and consensus of the research behind this vaccine: study types, sample sizes, years of data, reproducibility.85
Modeled vaccine harm: low

Without vaccine

  • Exposure: ~8500 cases per 100k/yr unvaccinated
  • Hospitalization: 2% of infections
  • Mortality: 5 per 100k infected
  • Chronic sequelae: 0.5%
  • Rotavirus gastroenteritis causes profuse watery diarrhea (up to 20 episodes/day), vomiting, fever, and severe dehydratio…

With vaccine

  • Effectiveness: 87% against severe disease
  • Exposure: ~1020 cases per 100k/yr vaccinated
  • Common side effects: injection site soreness, low-grade fever (self-limiting)
  • Rare serious events: 1 documented (see full analysis for incidence rates)
  • Protection highest in first 2 years of life — the highest-risk period. Immunity wanes but natural bo…

How this score is built

We use a transparent, multi-source weighting model. No single agency's recommendation drives the output.

What goes into Net Benefit?

Net Benefit is computed from four dimensions: Exposure Risk (how likely your child encounters the disease), Disease Consequence (how severe the disease is), Vaccine Benefit (how much the vaccine reduces that risk), and Vaccine Harm (adverse event probability × severity weight). The formula is publicly visible in our methodology page.

Why does the score change when I adjust my scenario?

The scenario modifiers — daycare, travel, local outbreaks, older siblings, immunocompromised household — are multipliers on the Exposure Risk dimension. When your exposure context changes, the effective risk changes, which shifts the Net Benefit score. This is the core design: the 'right' answer depends on your situation, not a population average.

What does 'Vaccine Risk' mean?

Vaccine Risk scores the adverse event profile of the vaccine itself: each known adverse event is weighted by its probability (per 100,000 doses) and severity (mild, moderate, serious, rare-serious). A score of 6 means the modeled harm from the vaccine is extremely low — not zero, but very low relative to a scale of 0–100.

How do you handle uncertainty and dissenting views?

Each vaccine card includes an Uncertainties section and a Credible Critiques section in the full analysis. These are not strawmen — they are documented concerns from peer-reviewed literature or reputable independent researchers. We show them with equal visual weight.