Abstract
Vaccines are the optimal public health strategy to prevent disease, but the growing anti-vaccine movement has focused renewed attention on the need to persuade people to increase vaccine uptake. This commentary draws on social and behavioral science theory and proposes a vaccine uptake continuum comprised of five factors: (1) awareness of the health threat; (2) availability of the vaccine; (3) accessibility of the vaccine; (4) affordability of the vaccine; and (5) acceptability of the vaccine to effectively approach this rising challenge.
Highlights
Vaccines are the optimal public health strategy to prevent disease
We outline and apply a vaccine uptake continuum, which may be useful in conceptualizing vaccine hesitancy and could play a role in helping to confront this complex public health problem
The current refusal to accept specific vaccines such as the measles or influenza vaccine is symptomatic of a broader sentiment of vaccine hesitancy
Summary
Vaccines are the optimal public health strategy to prevent disease. vaccine effectiveness is contingent on their use. In the past year (2019), vaccine hesitancy toward the measles vaccine, in particular, corresponded with 1249 reported measles cases, the highest annual number since 1992 Of those cases, 89% were unvaccinated or had an unknown vaccination status, and 86% were associated with outbreaks in under-immunized, tight-knit communities with shared belief systems that do not encourage vaccination [1]. The discipline draws upon psychology, sociology, anthropology, and political science to apply systems theory and models to complex public health challenges In this commentary we discuss how social and behavioral sciences can play an integral role in understanding, predicting, and promoting vaccine uptake. We propose that by building upon the wealth of well-established theories of health and social behavior, we may be able to more precisely identify and effectively target key constructs that adversely influence vaccine uptake, modify these constructs via myriad intervention strategies to reduce hesitancy, and enhance vaccine uptake. We outline and apply a vaccine uptake continuum, which may be useful in conceptualizing vaccine hesitancy and could play a role in helping to confront this complex public health problem
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