Age, Education Level, And Religiousness Of Parents May Predict Vaccine Hesitancy
Study Suggests Relationship Between Anti-vaccination Beliefs and Other Underlying Attitudes
Parents who hesitate to vaccinate their children tend to share key demographic backgrounds and have attitudinal commonalities, which may help public health exports deploy more targeted, effective messaging to counteract anti-vaccination beliefs. A study published in PLOS One by Rebekah Reuben at University of Toronto and colleagues found that vaccine hesitant parents are younger, less educated, more religious, have significantly less trust in physicians and greater disgust sensitivity.
Increased vaccine hesitancy among parents is a major threat to public health globally. However, the key demographics and underlying attitudes associated with anti-vaccination beliefs are not well understood and efforts to combat vaccine misinformation have been unsuccessful. To examine the association between vaccine hesitancy and demographic factors, trust in medicine, and disgust sensitivity, researchers recruited 484 participants from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, all of whom were parents through Amazon MTurk. Participants self-reported demographic information such as age, sex, and education level, use of health services and ranked their political ideologies, religiosity and trust in medical professionals institutions using a 7-point Likert scale. Researchers then analyzed responses using linear regression to determine major predictors of vaccine hesitancy.
In recent years, incidence of communicable diseases such as measles and pertussis has increased due to a rise in vaccine refusal and hesitancy. Identifying those likely to be vaccine hesitant and the underlying attitudes that predict these beliefs is necessary to develop more effective strategies to combat anti-vaccination movements. Although the authors were able to identify strong relationships between vaccine hesitancy, younger age, lower education level, higher religiosity, and a strong distrust of physicians among participants, the recruitment method procured a nonrandom and nonrepresentative study sample and may be limited in its generalizability. However, the researchers believe their study is the first to analyze these factors within the same cohort, creating a better understanding of the strongest predictors of parental vaccine hesitancy.
According to the authors, “Counteracting vaccine hesitancy and refusal will require a multifaceted effort, and a better understanding of key demographic and attitudinal predictors will be required for an effective approach. Taken together, these attributes begin to paint a picture of who is vaccine hesitant and provide further insight into the demographic and attitudinal predictors needed to create successful public health messaging.”