Trust matters: The Addressing Vaccine Hesitancy in Europe Study.

This article presents the design of a seven-country study focusing on childhood vaccines, Addressing Vaccine Hesitancy in Europe (VAX-TRUST), developed during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study consists of (a) situation analysis of vaccine hesitancy (examination of individual, socio-demographic and macro-level factors of vaccine hesitancy and analysis of media coverage on vaccines and vaccination and (b) participant observation and in-depth interviews of healthcare professionals and vaccine-hesitant parents. These analyses were used to design interventions aimed at increasing awareness on the complexity of vaccine hesitancy among healthcare professionals involved in discussing childhood vaccines with parents. We present the selection of countries and regions, the conceptual basis of the study, details of the data collection and the process of designing and evaluating the interventions, as well as the potential impact of the study. Laying out our research design serves as an example of how to translate complex public health issues into social scientific study and methods.

The salutogenic gaze: Theorising the practitioner role in complementary and alternative medicine consultations.

Research on why people use complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) shows clients value the CAM consultation, where they feel listened to and empowered to control their own health. Such 'empowerment' through CAM use is often theorised as reflecting wider neoliberal imperatives of self-responsibility. CAM users' perspectives are well studied, but there has been little sociological analysis of interactions within the CAM consultation. Specifically, it is unclear how user empowerment/self-knowledge relates to the CAM practitioner's power and expert knowledge. We address this using audio-recorded consultations and interviews with CAM practitioners to explore knowledge use in client-practitioner interactions and its meaning for practitioners. Based on our analysis and drawing on Foucault (1973), The Birth of the Clinic: an archaeology of medical perception and Antonovsky (1979), Health, Stress and Coping, we theorise the operation of power/knowledge in the CAM practitioner-client dyad by introducing the concept of the 'salutogenic gaze'. This gaze operates in the CAM consultation with disciplining and productive effects that are oriented towards health promotion. Practitioners listen to and value clients' stories, but their gaze also incorporates surveillance and normalisation, aided by technologies that may or may not be shared with clients. Because the salutogenic gaze is ultimately transferred from practitioner to client, it empowers CAM users while simultaneously reinforcing the practitioner's power as a health expert.