FA16 Immunization Module’s Updates

Social hurdles for adminstering vaccines: What can health professions be doing differently?

Vaccinations have been proven an effective method in prevention of disease but they have still have been meet with hesitancy from some of the general population, particularly in recent years. With the spread of diseases such as pertussis and measles outbreaks we must look at the obstacles leading to the populations choosing not to vaccinate.  In one study looking for reasons in vaccine hesitancy they looked at factors such as historic, political and socio-cultural context, communication and social media, health professional recommendations and public health and vaccine policies. One overlying theme they found was trust among the forms of communication, health professions and policy makers.

 

schematic of the factors they considered to influence vaccine hesitancy
 

                   

So it brings a questions that not only must we be educating the public but how do we as health care professionals and policy makers convey trust to the public so they are more receptive to the information given to them. One-way of addressing this issue brought about in the study was sharing the policymaking process and the research behind vaccine safety in this way we make the process transparent hopefully giving populations a greater sense of trust.  This however is not the only factor that affects populations particularly those in countries underserved where diseases such as polio still are a large problem. In a study done on Pakistan looking at reasons for lack of compliance in polio vaccine regardless of the WHO Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) it was shown that religious and cultural beliefs and lack of knowledge played a big role in vaccination for pediatric patients. In these circumstances where vaccinations are greatly needed to prevent disease finding a better source of disseminating information that reaches the audience is needed to be further looked into as well as taking into account the cultural and religious beliefs of a population and tailoring campaigns to help alleviated the taboos some cultures hold associated with vaccinations.  Overall in order to further promote vaccinations both here and aboard better forms of communicating information on vaccines as well as a better trusting relationships between health professions and the populations must be further looked into.

Table showing primary and secondary reasons for non vaccination

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3716633/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3906279/

  • Troy Watson
  • Daniel Cibich
  • Nadia Churchill-Gilstrap