Vaccine hesitancy and secondary risks

Publication Type

Book Chapter

Publication Date

8-2021

Abstract

One facet of pandemic preparedness and resiliency planning is to anticipate that a significant portion of the population will not understand, or be willing, to adopt advocated risk mitigation responses. Communication plays a central and vital role in creating salience and stoking motivations to respond effectively to pandemics and other public health crises. Widespread adoption of variolation, inoculation, and vaccination has historically improved community resilience to disease, but with limited effectiveness due to a growing community who are unwilling to vaccinate. Vaccine hesitancy is a decision-making outcome stemming from diverse motives and is often related to a lack of vaccine confidence and perceived risks. In the race to develop vaccines to mitigate pandemic risks, there is a need to understand factors influencing vaccine hesitancy. Secondary risk theory (SRT) is a useful framework to explain this, accounting for concerns about vaccine efficacy and safety. This chapter unpacks how vaccine hesitancy should be of critical concern to health and risk communicators and introduces SRT as a foundational theoretical framework to explain and predict vaccination decisions.

Discipline

Health Communication | Public Health

Research Areas

Integrative Research Areas

Publication

Pandemic Communication and Resilience

Editor

David M. Berube

First Page

89

Last Page

105

ISBN

9783030773441

Identifier

10.1007/978-3-030-77344-1_6

Publisher

Springer

City or Country

Cham

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77344-1_6

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