Rethinking the antivaccine movement concept: A case study of public criticism of the swine flu vaccine’s safety in France

Ward, Jeremy K.

doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.05.003

Cited by 60 publications

(66 citation statements)

References 33 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…A core research question that resulted from the 2014 report by American Academy of Arts and Sciences, entitled “ Public Trust in Vaccines: Defining a Research Agenda ” was, “To what extent does vaccine hesitancy result from broader distrust in government and science” [(83) p. 10]. This question resonates with other recent literature which cites “trust” as critically important in the decision for parents to vaccinate (86–89). Trust in vaccines and vaccination is complex: it describes a continuum of trust from the funding of immunology research, to vaccine design and manufacture, through government decision making regarding which vaccinations to fund for immunization programs, to the point at which a vaccine is administered by the medical provider to the individual.…”

Section: Trust In Childhood Immunizationsmentioning

confidence: 89%

Improving Access to, Use of, and Outcomes from Public Health Programs: The Importance of Building and Maintaining Trust with Patients/Clients

Ward

2017

Front. Public Health

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The central argument in this paper is that “public trust” is critical for developing and maintaining the health and wellbeing of individuals, communities, and societies. I argue that public health practitioners and policy makers need to take “public trust” seriously if they intend to improve both the public’s health and the engagement between members of the public and public health systems. Public health practitioners implement a range of services and interventions aimed at improving health but implicit a requirement for individuals to trust the practitioners and the services/interventions, before they engage with them. I then go on to provide an overview of the theory of trust within sociology and show why it is important to understand this theory in order to promote trust in public health services. I then draw on literature in three classic areas of public health—hospitals, cancer screening, and childhood immunization—to show why trust is vital in terms of understanding and potentially improving uptake of services. The case studies in this paper reveal that public health practitioners need to understand the centrality of building and maintaining trusting relationships with patients/clients because people who distrust public health services are less likely to use them, less likely to follow advice or recommendations, and more likely to have poorer health outcomes.

show abstract

Section: Trust In Childhood Immunizationsmentioning

confidence: 89%

Improving Access to, Use of, and Outcomes from Public Health Programs: The Importance of Building and Maintaining Trust with Patients/Clients

Ward

2017

Front. Public Health

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For instance, discussions can coalesce not only around conspiracy theories but also around real uncertainties and blind spots in health authorities' communications. 9,10 In times of crisis, public authorities tend to focus their concern on avoiding panic and filtering the information they provide to the public. But trust is a crucial support to public health systems.…”

Section: Tracking Online Heroisation and Blame In Epidemicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tracking online heroisation and blame in epidemics

Atlani-Duault

Ward

Roy

et al. 2020

The Lancet Public Health

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…A number of researchers argue that policy and practice needs to focus on individuals whom Ward [3] would characterise as groups two and three, because they may be more open to change [1, 12, 21, 38, 39]. (We note, however, that our focus was on understanding parents’ logic for vaccination decisions, as opposed to explicitly seeking to change their behaviours).…”

Section: Concluding Commentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since the scientific and policy consensus on the benefits of nationally recommended vaccination schedules is unequivocal, vaccine delayers and refusers have been framed (particularly within lay discourse) as lacking knowledge, possessing ignorance, or being paranoid conspiracy theorists [1, 2]. The term ‘anti vaccination’ is often applied to such parents, which can serve to polarise or punish them for not complying with government policy [3]. Additionally, popular wisdom has long linked vaccine refusal to alternative lifestyles, and recent scholarship has attempted to synthesise evidence and advance explanations for how alternative lifestyles connect to vaccine refusal [4–8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding the perceived logic of care by vaccine-hesitant and vaccine-refusing parents: A qualitative study in Australia

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In terms of public health, childhood vaccination programs have benefits that far outweigh risks. However, some parents decide not to vaccinate their children. This paper explores the ways in which such parents talked about the perceived risks and benefits incurred by vaccinating (or not vaccinating) their children. Between 2013–2016 we undertook 29 in-depth interviews with non-vaccinating and/or ‘vaccine hesitant’ parents in Australia. Interviews were conducted in an open and non-judgmental manner, akin to empathic neutrality. Interviews focused on parents talking about the factors that shaped their decisions not to (or partially) vaccinate their children. All interviews were transcribed and analysed using both inductive and deductive processes. The main themes focus on parental perceptions of: 1. their capacity to reason; 2. their rejection of Western medical epistemology; and 3. their participation in labour intensive parenting practices (which we term salutogenic parenting). Parents engaged in an ongoing search for information about how best to parent their children (capacity to reason), which for many led to questioning/distrust of traditional scientific knowledge (rejection of Western medical epistemology). Salutogenic parenting spontaneously arose in interviews, whereby parents practised health promoting activities which they saw as boosting the natural immunity of their children and protecting them from illness (reducing or negating the perceived need for vaccinations). Salutogenic parenting practices included breastfeeding, eating organic and/or home-grown food, cooking from scratch to reduce preservative consumption and reducing exposure to toxins. We interpret our data as a ‘logic of care’, which is seen by parents as internally consistent, logically inter-related and inter-dependent. Whilst not necessarily sharing the parents’ reasoning, we argue that an understanding of their attitudes towards health and well-being is imperative for any efforts to engage with their vaccine refusal at a policy level.

show abstract

Rethinking the antivaccine movement concept: A case study of public criticism of the swine flu vaccine’s safety in France

Cited by 60 publications

References 33 publications

Improving Access to, Use of, and Outcomes from Public Health Programs: The Importance of Building and Maintaining Trust with Patients/Clients

Improving Access to, Use of, and Outcomes from Public Health Programs: The Importance of Building and Maintaining Trust with Patients/Clients

Tracking online heroisation and blame in epidemics

Understanding the perceived logic of care by vaccine-hesitant and vaccine-refusing parents: A qualitative study in Australia

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About