Vaccine Hesitancy - How to identify and solve the problem

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Vaccine Hesitancy Disease prevention is one of the ultimate objectives that health care systems across the world aim to achieve. Health care leaders have identified various interventions, including patient education, vaccination, and healthy lifestyles, to help achieve disease prevention outcomes.

Vaccination, as denoted by Shen and Dubey (2019), is among the most successful public health programs intended to eradicate diseases. Vaccines are given to people at various life stages to help prevent diseases (Shen & Dubey, 2019).

Clinicians recommend vaccinating children against diseases such as measles, tuberculosis, whooping cough, and polio. Health care researchers have developed protocols to guide the vaccination of young and older people against specific diseases. Shen and Dubey (2019) noted that adolescents and young adults should be given vaccines for common diseases like hepatitis, human papillomavirus and tetanus. Despite the potential medical benefits of vaccination, some factions of society detest vaccines. This paper investigates current literature on vaccine hesitancy to identify the cause and the best ways to resolve this problem.

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Vaccine hesitancy Vaccination hesitancy is described as the refusal of vaccines irrespective of vaccines availability. Vaccines refusal is a complex phenomenon that varies across place, time, and vaccines (Dyda, King, Dey, Leask & Dunn, 2019). Parental and young people’s concerns about vaccines are the main factors that typify vaccine hesitancy. Despite vaccination being a normal medical practice in the U.S, a significant proportion of parents vaccinates their children amidst numerous concerns. The main contributors to vaccine refusal include cultural beliefs, misconceptions on vaccine safety, religious reasons, and personal beliefs.

Dyda, King, Dey, Leask, and Dunn (2019) pointed out that some parents believe vaccines are unsafe and could generate unsuitable health effects in children. Vaccine safety concerns are attributable to misinformation. Parents tend to refuse vaccines if they come across information discrediting vaccines. Individuals bombarded with negative opinions on vaccines from various sources are also likely to display vaccine hesitancy.

Vaccine reluctance is a significant health issue that requires practical intervention to prevent the re-emergence of diseases preventable through vaccination. Vaccine refusal exposes people to the risk of contagious diseases. It has been linked to measles and other diseases outbreaks in various regions across the U.S (McKee & Bohannon, 2016). Salmon, Dudley, Glanz and Omer (2015) noted that to address vaccine hesitancy, health care leaders need to locate and quantify vaccine refusal clusters using standardized measurement tools.

Health care leaders could also initiate extensive campaigns to enlighten people about the benefits of vaccines. The government could also send customized messages to individuals with vaccine concerns. McKee and Bohannon (2016) argued that vaccine hesitancy clusters should be

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educated on the health benefits and risks of a vaccine to enable them to make evidence-based decisions. Importantly, health care professionals should assure these people of vaccine safety.

Conclusion Despite the potential of vaccines to prevent diseases, save lives and improve the quality of life can never be underestimated the uptake of vaccines is largely reliant on parental and individual views on vaccines. Cultural beliefs, misconceptions, and religious issues contribute immensely to vaccine hesitancy. Extensive education campaigns and vaccination drives can increase people’s knowledge of vaccines thus helping them make right decisions.

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References Cataldi, J. R., & O’Leary, S. T. (2021). Parental vaccine hesitancy: scope, causes, and potential responses. Current Opinion in Infectious Diseases, 34(5), 519-526. http://doi:10.1097/QCO.0000000000000774 Dyda, A., King, C., Dey, A., Leask, J., & Dunn, A. (2019). A systematic review of parental vaccine hesitancy and refusal in childhood vaccination. Research Square. 1-29. https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.2.14640/v1 McKee, C., & Bohannon, K. (2016). Exploring the Reasons Behind Parental Refusal of Vaccines. JPPT 21(2), 104–109. https://doi.org/10.5863/1551-6776-21.2.104 Salmon, D. A., Dudley, M. Z., Glanz, J. M., & Omer, S. B. (2015). Vaccine hesitancy: causes, consequences, and a call to action. Vaccine, 33, D66-D71. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2015.09.035 Shen, S. C., & Dubey, V. (2019). Addressing vaccine hesitancy: Clinical guidance for primary care physicians working with parents. Canadian family physician Medecin de famille canadien, 65(3), 175–181. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6515949/