Why aren’t parents vaccinating their children?
Many parents vaccinate their children as per the recommended schedule, but there are those parents who do not or delay immunizing their children. Vaccination is essential since they help in preventing diseases and strengthening the baby’s immunity. Vaccines prevent infectious diseases. However, vaccine injection has mild side effects, usually expected, but when combined and multiple vaccines are used, they are safe (Boes et al., 2017). Without vaccines, children are at risk of disability, suffering pain, and death from severe diseases like whooping cough and measles; thus, vaccine hesitance or delay in vaccination disrupts the immunity and increases the chance of getting vaccine-preventable diseases. Choosing not to vaccinate children is related to either psychological or demographic determinants, such as social norms, trust in science, and attitude towards vaccinations (Kata & Ann, 2012). This paper aims at understanding those determinants that make parents have vaccine hesitancy since children are unable to make decisions. Parents are critical propagators of vaccine hesitance, and children are the victims.
Trust toward authorities. Feeling of mistrust can be part of parents feeling unease about the complexity of a modern society that has made people depend on others to superintend various parts of their lives (Boes et al., 2017). Distrust in scientists and science has led to scientific populism, which has caused anti-vaccination decision and challenged the role of science. Parents who have a favorable view of the authority are more apparent to support vaccination. The study has shown people with a high level of distrust to the administration are likely to be more reluctant to rely on official pro-vaccination authority (Boes et al., 2017). Herein, we expect the association between intention to vaccinate and level of trust to be moderated by the source consultation type to make an appropriate decision. Finally, belief in conspiracy theories can foretell the mistrust that people have towards the authority.
They perceived consensus and norms. Majority of the vaccination decisions are impacted by parents’ discernment of others when deciding children vaccination. Van der Linden et al. suggests it, In the book The Gateways Belief Model that reducing the difference between people’s subjective perception and level of normative agreement can lead to crucial changes in vital personal beliefs. Because of high involvement in vaccine-related decisions, there is perceived scientific consensus which does a particular role, since it is an essential forecaster of science to be accepted in similar social issues (Betsch et al., 2010). We anticipate parents who view scientific consensus, especially on vaccination to show no or little vaccination hesitance to their children. In places or where people show social norms ambiguity, convincing them to the unity of standard and consensus can be a useful tool to persuade them to vaccinate their children (Betsch et al., 2010)
Access to information. Different parents’ value different choices of vaccine related information, based on their risk perception. Knowledge is an important factor in sharpening parents’ decision. Parents who think they have enough information they are likely to be vaccine-hesitant. Such anecdotal case can only be countered when people are fed with relevant information from medical experts and not from unqualified personal experience, which can mislead. Getting relevant information can mediate the perception of threat. (Kata & Ann, 2012
In conclusion, parents who choose not to immunize their children should be held responsible if the youngster develops a transmit vaccine-preventable disease. However, if immunization was recommended to all children via parents, more than 90% of would potentially agree to vaccinate their young ones.
Reference
Kata & Ann (2012). Anti-vaccine activists, Web 2.0, and the postmodern paradigm–An overview of tactics and tropes used online by the anti-vaccination movement. Retrieved from; https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X11019086
Betsch C., Renkewitz F., Betsch T., Ulshöfer C. (2010). The influence of vaccine-critical websites on perceiving vaccination risks. Retrieved from; https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1359105309353647
Boes L., Boedeker B., Schmich P., Wetzstein M., Wichmann O., Remschmidt C. (2017). Parental acceptance of seasonal influenza vaccination. Retrieved from; https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X17306230