Vaccination is one of the greatest medical achievements in modern history. Prior to the introduction of mass immunization, diseases such as smallpox, measles, and polio, devastated families and communities, not only because of their high mortality rates but also due to their potential life-altering complications. Yet, despite the consensus that vaccination is a vital public health tool, growing numbers of parents express anxiety and concern about the possible risks of vaccines and choose to refuse or delay vaccination for their children. Access to vaccines also remains an issue of concern: even in advanced liberal democracies, some segments of the population experience disproportionately higher exposure to vaccine preventable illnesses.
This symposium brings together several papers across two panels to explore questions about risk communication and vaccine hesitancy, access and uptake. Collectively, both panels are concerned with growing rates of vaccine refusal and delay, and recognize the need to improve uptake of childhood immunization worldwide. They also share an understanding that more rigorous research is needed to understand what factors drive vaccine acceptance and access, and of the importance of developing effective, evidence-driven interventions using risk communication.
Panel 1 sets a context for understanding vaccine hesitancy as a sociocultural phenomenon and policy dilemma. Josh Greenberg examines news coverage of the Disneyland measles outbreak to show how media discourse shapes how we experience, understand, and imagine our shared vulnerability to infection and disease. His interest is less in how individuals make decisions about vaccination, than how outbreak narratives inform the constitution and circulation of public understandings about vaccination and disease. Frederic Bouder reminds us of the important role of risk communication research in understanding how people assess the risks of harm from disease against the potential harm of a vaccine. Yet, he suggests that we need to better understand how the lessons of risk communication research have been used by healthcare professionals and informed public policy. Cindy Jardine examines Canadian policies and procedures shaping access to health services, immunization costs and risk communication. Her focus on immigrant and refugee specific policies is important given the higher rates of vaccine preventable diseases for these groups. Finally, Eve Dubé presents findings from a study of risk perception among vaccine hesitant parents in Canada. Exploring tensions between rational approaches to risk perception and those informed by theories of affect, she shows that individuals assess vaccine risk in ways that reflect their cultural, emotional, and social worlds.