First-Time Mothers: For Vaccine Questions, Consult Your Peers on Facebook

Abstract

Despite numerous scientific studies affirming the safety and efficacy of vaccinations, decreased parental uptake has led in part to disease resurgence in the United States (Ventola, 2016). A systematic review of 42 studies revealed that exemption rates for vaccination requirements to enter public schools or daycares have been increasing and occur in geographic“clusters,” where vaccination rates fall dangerously below the national average (Wang, Clymer, Davis-Hayes, & Buttenheim, 2014). At the transition to parenthood, mothers rely on Facebook with increased intensity for health information-seeking purposes. In a rejection of the health information deficit model, the purpose of this study was to propose a conceptual model which describes how first-time mothers’ dependence on Facebook may lead to childhood vaccine avoidance, in accordance with social network theory. A model is presented and propositions are offered to explain why discerning first-time mothers, who are consistently more vaccine hesitant, may seek and rely on information from peers in closed Facebook groups rather than from health professionals. While research has separately explored both vaccine hesitancy and social network utilization for health information seeking, no conceptual model to date has linked these concepts with first-time mothers’ childhood vaccine avoidance. Published research supports the constructs included in the proposed causal pathway, and this “Maternal Facebook Dependence-Childhood Vaccine Avoidance Model” will act as a springboard for advancement in operationalization of this complex relational construct.