Theorizing (Vaccine) Refusal: Through the Looking Glass

Sobo, Elisa J.

doi:10.14506/ca31.3.04

Cited by 97 publications

(70 citation statements)

References 16 publications

(25 reference statements)

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“…Our key finding around salutogenic parenting both dovetails with and deviates from recent research in the US [4–6, 12]. Reich [4] found that mothers trust their own judgement more than experts (drawing on embodied knowledge and intuition).…”

Section: Concluding Commentssupporting

confidence: 48%

“…Sobo et al’s [12] division of parents who questioned vaccinations into four quadrants is also pertinent to our analysis and findings. Their four quadrants related to a) whether parents saw allopathic medicine or natural remedies as valued methods for maintaining health, and b) whether they thought the world was full of risks and therefore individual responsibility is required, or whether the world is safer and they can therefore consider community benefits [25].…”

Section: Concluding Commentsmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…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%

“…Within this paper, we build upon recent work by Sobo [12] that reframes vaccine refusal from being a negative / deficit to, from these parent’s perspective, being a positively constituted act. Sobo identified (with her US Waldorf [Steiner] school vaccine refusing parents) that rejecting was also a certain type of accepting –accepting the predominant values, identities and lifestyles of one’s peers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

et al. 2017

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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.

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Section: Concluding Commentssupporting

confidence: 48%

Section: Concluding Commentsmentioning

confidence: 92%

Section: Concluding Commentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

et al. 2017

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“…The social and moral aspects of refusal are as important as its political aspects; this is evident in contexts well beyond Tibet. In the contemporary United States, for example, refusing children's vaccines can create an affiliative sense of a community among parents who understand themselves as responsible, independent thinkers (Sobo ). In Israel conscientious objectors may seek to refigure national morality by refusing certain aspects of war, including the “ethical objects” of military action (Weiss ).…”

Section: Without Documents Without Rights: Statelessness As a Moral mentioning

confidence: 99%

Refusal as political practice:

McGranahan

2018

American Ethnologist

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Is it possible to be both a refugee and a citizen? For six decades, Tibetan refugees have refused citizenship in South Asia as part of their claims to Tibetan state sovereignty. They have lived in India and Nepal as refugee noncitizens, either undocumented or underdocumented, for multiple generations. But as Tibetans migrate to the United States and Canada, they gain citizenship through political asylum while maintaining their belonging to the Dalai Lama's refugee community. This shift in political practice is as situated in specific histories as it is in geographies. Tibetan citizenship practices in exile are not claims for recognition or forms of resistance; they are, rather, a refusal of international norms through a present‐day insistence on past and future political sovereignty.

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Factors that influence parents' and informal caregivers' views and practices regarding routine childhood vaccination: a qualitative evidence synthesis

Cooper

Schmidt

Sambala

et al. 2021

Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews

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Background Childhood vaccination is one of the most effective ways to prevent serious illnesses and deaths in children. However, worldwide, many children do not receive all recommended vaccinations, for several potential reasons. Vaccines might be unavailable, or parents may experience difficulties in accessing vaccination services; for instance, because of poor quality health services, distance from a health facility, or lack of money. Some parents may not accept available vaccines and vaccination services. Our understanding of what influences parents’ views and practices around childhood vaccination, and why some parents may not accept vaccines for their children, is still limited. This synthesis links to Cochrane Reviews of the effectiveness of interventions to improve coverage or uptake of childhood vaccination. Objectives ‐ Explore parents’ and informal caregivers’ views and practices regarding routine childhood vaccination, and the factors influencing acceptance, hesitancy, or nonacceptance of routine childhood vaccination. ‐ Develop a conceptual understanding of what and how different factors reduce parental acceptance of routine childhood vaccination. ‐ Explore how the findings of this review can enhance our understanding of the related Cochrane Reviews of intervention effectiveness. Search methods We searched MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, and three other databases for eligible studies from 1974 to June 2020. Selection criteria We included studies that: utilised qualitative methods for data collection and analysis; focused on parents’ or caregivers’ views, practices, acceptance, hesitancy, or refusal of routine vaccination for children aged up to six years; and were from any setting globally where childhood vaccination is provided. Data collection and analysis We used a pre‐specified sampling frame to sample from eligible studies, aiming to capture studies that were conceptually rich, relevant to the review's phenomenon of interest, from diverse geographical settings, and from a range of income‐level settings. We extracted contextual and methodological data from each sampled study. We used a meta‐ethnographic approach to analyse and synthesise the evidence. We assessed methodological limitations using a list of criteria used in previous Cochrane Reviews and originally based on the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme quality assessment tool for qualitative studies. We used the GRADE‐CERQual (Confidence in the Evidence from Reviews of Qualitative research) approach to assess our confidence in each finding. We integrated the findings of this review with those from relevant Cochrane Reviews of intervention effectiveness. We did this by mapping whether the underlying theories or components of trial interventions included in those reviews related to or targeted the overarching factors influencing parental views and...

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Theorizing (Vaccine) Refusal: Through the Looking Glass

Cited by 97 publications

References 16 publications

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

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

Refusal as political practice:

Factors that influence parents' and informal caregivers' views and practices regarding routine childhood vaccination: a qualitative evidence synthesis

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