Media attention and Vaccine Hesitancy: Examining the mediating effects of Fear of COVID-19 and the moderating role of Trust in leadership.

Vaccination has emerged as the most cost-effective public health strategy for maintaining population health, with various social and economic benefits. These vaccines, however, cannot be effective without widespread acceptance. The present study examines the effect of media attention on COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy by incorporating fear of COVID-19 as a mediator, whereas trust in leadership served as a moderator. An analytical cross-sectional study is performed among rural folks in the Wassa Amenfi Central of Ghana. Using a questionnaire survey, we were able to collect 3079 valid responses. The Smart PLS was used to estimate the relationship among the variables. The results revealed that media attention had a significant influence on vaccine hesitancy. Furthermore, the results showed that fear of COVID-19 played a significant mediating role in the relationship between media and vaccine hesitancy. However, trust in leadership had an insignificant moderating relationship on the fear of COVID-19 and vaccine hesitancy. The study suggests that the health management team can reduce vaccine hesitancy if they focus on lessening the negative impact of media and other antecedents like fear on trust in leadership.

Assessing COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake and Effectiveness Through the North West London Vaccination Program: Retrospective Cohort Study.

BACKGROUND: On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared SARS-CoV-2, causing COVID-19, as a pandemic. The UK mass vaccination program commenced on December 8, 2020, vaccinating groups of the population deemed to be most vulnerable to severe COVID-19 infection. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to assess the early vaccine administration coverage and outcome data across an integrated care system in North West London, leveraging a unique population-level care data set. Vaccine effectiveness of a single dose of the Oxford/AstraZeneca and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines were compared. METHODS: A retrospective cohort study identified 2,183,939 individuals eligible for COVID-19 vaccination between December 8, 2020, and February 24, 2021, within a primary, secondary, and community care integrated care data set. These data were used to assess vaccination hesitancy across ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic deprivation measures (Pearson product-moment correlations); investigate COVID-19 transmission related to vaccination hubs; and assess the early effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccination (after a single dose) using time-to-event analyses with multivariable Cox regression analysis to investigate if vaccination independently predicted positive SARS-CoV-2 in those vaccinated compared to those unvaccinated. RESULTS: In this study, 5.88% (24,332/413,919) of individuals declined and did not receive a vaccination. Black or Black British individuals had the highest rate of declining a vaccine at 16.14% (4337/26,870). There was a strong negative association between socioeconomic deprivation and rate of declining vaccination (r=-0.94; P=.002) with 13.5% (1980/14,571) of individuals declining vaccination in the most deprived areas compared to 0.98% (869/9609) in the least. In the first 6 days after vaccination, 344 of 389,587 (0.09%) individuals tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. The rate increased to 0.13% (525/389,243) between days 7 and 13, before then gradually falling week on week. At 28 days post vaccination, there was a 74% (hazard ratio 0.26, 95% CI 0.19-0.35) and 78% (hazard ratio 0.22, 95% CI 0.18-0.27) reduction in risk of testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 for individuals that received the Oxford/AstraZeneca and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines, respectively, when compared with unvaccinated individuals. A very low proportion of hospital admissions were seen in vaccinated individuals who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 (288/389,587, 0.07% of all patients vaccinated) providing evidence for vaccination effectiveness after a single dose. CONCLUSIONS: There was no definitive evidence to suggest COVID-19 was transmitted as a result of vaccination hubs during the vaccine administration rollout in North West London, and the risk of contracting COVID-19 or becoming hospitalized after vaccination has been demonstrated to be low in the vaccinated population. This study provides further evidence that a single dose of either the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine or the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is effective at reducing the risk of testing positive for COVID-19 up to 60 days across all age groups, ethnic groups, and risk categories in an urban UK population.

Mounting antiscience aggression in the United States.

There is a troubling new expansion of antiscience aggression in the United States. It's arising from far-right extremism, including some elected members of the US Congress and conservative news outlets that target prominent biological scientists fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.

The anti-vaccination infodemic on social media: A behavioral analysis.

Vaccinations are without doubt one of the greatest achievements of modern medicine, and there is hope that they can constitute a solution to halt the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. However, the anti-vaccination movement is currently on the rise, spreading online misinformation about vaccine safety and causing a worrying reduction in vaccination rates worldwide. In this historical time, it is imperative to understand the reasons of vaccine hesitancy, and to find effective strategies to dismantle the rhetoric of anti-vaccination supporters. For this reason, we analyzed the behavior of anti-vaccination supporters on the platform Twitter. Here we identify that anti-vaccination supporters, in comparison with pro-vaccination supporters, share conspiracy theories and make use of emotional language. We demonstrate that anti-vaccination supporters are more engaged in discussions on Twitter and share their contents from a pull of strong influencers. We show that the movement's success relies on a strong sense of community, based on the contents produced by a small fraction of profiles, with the community at large serving as a sounding board for anti-vaccination discourse to circulate online. Our data demonstrate that Donald Trump, before his profile was suspended, was the main driver of vaccine misinformation on Twitter. Based on these results, we welcome policies that aim at halting the circulation of false information about vaccines by targeting the anti-vaccination community on Twitter. Based on our data, we also propose solutions to improve the communication strategy of health organizations and build a community of engaged influencers that support the dissemination of scientific insights, including issues related to vaccines and their safety.

Beyond politics: additional factors underlying skepticism of a COVID-19 vaccine.

Even before it had been developed there had already been skepticism among the general public concerning a vaccine for COVID-19. What are the factors that drive this skepticism? While much has been said about how political differences are at play, in this article I draw attention to two additional factors that have not received as much attention: witnessing the fallibility of the scientific process play out in real time, and a perceived breakdown of the distinction between experts and non-experts.

Temas de contenido y voces influyentes dentro de la oposición a las vacunas en Twitter, 2019 / Content Themes and Influential Voices Within Vaccine Opposition on Twitter, 2019

RESUMEN Objetivo. Informar sobre la oposición a las vacunas y la información errónea fomentadas en Twitter, destacando las cuentas de Twitter que dirigen estas conversaciones. Métodos. Utilizamos el aprendizaje automático supervisado para codificar todos los mensajes publicados en Twitter. En primer lugar, identificamos manualmente los códigos y los temas mediante un enfoque teórico fundamentado y, a continuación, los aplicamos a todo el conjunto de datos de forma algorítmica. Identificamos a los 50 autores más importantes un mes tras otro para determinar las fuentes influyentes de información relacionadas con la oposición a las vacunas. Resultados. El período de recopilación de datos fue del 1 de junio al 1 de diciembre del 2019, lo que dio lugar a 356 594 mensajes opuestos a las vacunas. Un total de 129 autores de Twitter reunieron los criterios de autor principal durante al menos un mes. Los autores principales fueron responsables del 59,5% de los mensajes opuestos a las vacunas y detectamos diez temas de conversación. Los temas se distribuyeron de forma similar entre los autores principales y todos los demás autores que declararon su oposición a las vacunas. Los autores principales parecían estar muy coordinados en su promoción de la información errónea sobre cada tema. Conclusiones. La salud pública se ha esforzado por responder a la información errónea sobre las vacunas. Los resultados indican que las fuentes de información errónea sobre las vacunas no son tan heterogéneas ni están tan distribuidas como podría parecer a primera vista, dado el volumen de mensajes. Existen fuentes identificables de información errónea, lo que puede ayudar a contrarrestar los mensajes y a fortalecer la vigilancia de la salud pública.

ABSTRACT Objectives. To report on vaccine opposition and misinformation promoted on Twitter, highlighting Twitter accounts that drive conversation. Methods. We used supervised machine learning to code all Twitter posts. We first identified codes and themes manually by using a grounded theoretical approach and then applied them to the full data set algorithmically. We identified the top 50 authors month-over-month to determine influential sources of information related to vaccine opposition. Results. The data collection period was June 1 to December 1, 2019, resulting in 356 594 mentions of vaccine opposition. A total of 129 Twitter authors met the qualification of a top author in at least 1 month. Top authors were responsible for 59.5% of vaccine-opposition messages. We identified 10 conversation themes. Themes were similarly distributed across top authors and all other authors mentioning vaccine opposition. Top authors appeared to be highly coordinated in their promotion of misinformation within themes. Conclusions. Public health has struggled to respond to vaccine misinformation. Results indicate that sources of vaccine misinformation are not as heterogeneous or distributed as it may first appear given the volume of messages. There are identifiable upstream sources of misinformation, which may aid in countermessaging and public health surveillance.

Anti-vaccine movements - a form of social activity for health care, ignorance or diversion aimed at destabilizing the health situation? Part 1. Epidemiological safety. Vaccinations - pros and cons.

INTRODUCTION: Vaccinations are a way accepted by science of preventing infectious diseases. Because of their epidemiological significance, vaccinations are considered compulsory in many countries and their evasion is penalized. Anti-vaccine movements may pose a threat to the epidemiological situation in many countries. The study presents the arguments formulated by opponents of vaccination and provides counter-arguments. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The study is based on the analysis of data stored in scientific databases, information obtained from Google, Bing and Yahoo on the Internet, as well as newspapers, magazines and opinion-forming websites. RESULTS: The slogans propagated by anti-vaccination movements are usually based on easily proven erroneous theories and lies, although there are also arguments expressing belief in the conspiracy of governments, politicians and vaccine manufacturers, or incompetence of scientists and practitioners. CONCLUSIONS: In recent years in Poland, the activity of movements against vaccination has increased significantly, and their propaganda, through its negative impact on social attitudes, threatens to destabilize the epidemiological situation. Analysis of arguments used by the opponents of vaccination suggests a lack of reliable knowledge, religious overtones (addressed to people with fundamentalist personalities), or the ill-will attitudes of anti-vaccine individuals/groups used for their own purposes. Familiarization with the arguments of anti-vaccine propaganda is necessary in order to implement effective methods of fighting such attitudes and beliefs.

Anti-vaccine movements - health care, ignorance or a diversion aimed at destabilizing the health situation? Part 2. Contemporary conditions for the functioning and development of anti-vaccination movements.

INTRODUCTION: Vaccinations are a way accepted by science of the struggle against infectious diseases. Because of their epidemiological significance, vaccinations are considered compulsory in many countries and their evasion is penalized. The WHO experts list anti-vaccine attitudes and movements among the top 10 threats to human health. Most people's refusals are mainly due to fears of anti-vaccine propaganda. Understanding this phenomenon will be the basis for improving the epidemiological situation in Poland. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The study is based on the analysis of data stored in scientific databases, as well as information obtained from Google, Bing and Yahoo and newspapers, magazines and opinion-forming websites. RESULTS: The anti-vaccine movements occur due different motivations, such as ignorance, fear and religious beliefs. Sometimes they can be supported by foreign services aimed at destabilization in selected areas of the globe. CONCLUSIONS: Increased activity and effective propaganda carried out by anti-vaccination movements is possible, among others, thanks to the development of the so-called 2nd generation of the Internet (Web2), enabling the free and difficult to control flow of information. Increasing data indicate that the activity of anti-vaccine movements may be a form of organized action (diversion in cyberspace) aimed at social, epidemiological, and economic destabilization of selected countries and regions. Among the various forms of combating anti-vaccination movements currently used are awareness-raising activities and restrictions on freedom on the Internet by monitoring information flow, blocking materials containing selected phrases or keywords associated with anti-vaccine propaganda, and sanctions imposed on people avoiding vaccination.

Adapting and Extending a Typology to Identify Vaccine Misinformation on Twitter.

Objectives. To adapt and extend an existing typology of vaccine misinformation to classify the major topics of discussion across the total vaccine discourse on Twitter.Methods. Using 1.8 million vaccine-relevant tweets compiled from 2014 to 2017, we adapted an existing typology to Twitter data, first in a manual content analysis and then using latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) topic modeling to extract 100 topics from the data set.Results. Manual annotation identified 22% of the data set as antivaccine, of which safety concerns and conspiracies were the most common themes. Seventeen percent of content was identified as provaccine, with roughly equal proportions of vaccine promotion, criticizing antivaccine beliefs, and vaccine safety and effectiveness. Of the 100 LDA topics, 48 contained provaccine sentiment and 28 contained antivaccine sentiment, with 9 containing both.Conclusions. Our updated typology successfully combines manual annotation with machine-learning methods to estimate the distribution of vaccine arguments, with greater detail on the most distinctive topics of discussion. With this information, communication efforts can be developed to better promote vaccines and avoid amplifying antivaccine rhetoric on Twitter.

Antivaccine Messages on Facebook: Preliminary Audit.

BACKGROUND: The World Health Organization lists vaccine hesitancy as one of 10 threats to global health. The antivaccine movement uses Facebook to promote messages on the alleged dangers and consequences of vaccinating, leading to a reluctance to immunize against preventable communicable diseases. OBJECTIVE: We would like to know more about the messages these websites are sharing via social media that can influence readers and consumers. What messages is the public receiving on Facebook about immunization? What content (news articles, testimonials, videos, scientific studies) is being promoted? METHODS: We proposed using a social media audit tool and 3 categorical lists to capture information on websites and posts, respectively. The keywords "vaccine," "vaccine truth," and "anti-vax" were entered in the Facebook search bar. A Facebook page was examined if it had between 2500 and 150,000 likes. Data about beliefs, calls to action, and testimonials were recorded from posts and listed under the categories Myths, Truths, and Consequences. Website data were entered in a social media audit template. RESULTS: Users' posts reflected fear and vaccine hesitancy resulting from the alleged dangers of immunization featured on the website links. Vaccines were blamed for afflictions such as autism, cancer, and infertility. Mothers shared testimonies on alleged consequences their children suffered due to immunization, which have influenced other parents to not vaccinate their children. Users denied the current measles outbreaks in the United States to be true, retaliating against the government in protests for fabricating news. CONCLUSIONS: Some Facebook messages encourage prevailing myths about the safety and consequences of vaccines and likely contribute to parents' vaccine hesitancy. Deeply concerning is the mistrust social media has the potential to cast upon the relationship between health care providers and the public. A grasp of common misconceptions can help support health care provider practice.

Addressing Immunization Health Disparities.

Vaccines can prevent illness but are effective only if they reach a majority of the population at risk. Disparities based on many factors, such as race and ethnicity, economic status, and rural versus urban locations of residents, are ongoing issues in the United States. Reasons for disparities include cost, access, coverage, attitudes/beliefs, and systems issues. At the government level, programs like Vaccines for Children, Medicaid reform, Medicare, and state efforts funded in part by 317 grants have helped reduce but not eliminate disparities. At a practice level, vaccine disparities can be addressed by community outreach and systems to offer and deliver vaccines.

Parental Hesitancy About Routine Childhood and Influenza Vaccinations: A National Survey.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The World Health Organization has designated vaccine hesitancy as 1 of the 10 leading threats to global health, yet there is limited current national data on prevalence of hesitancy among US parents. Among a nationally representative sample of US parents, we aimed to (1) assess and compare prevalence of hesitancy and factors driving hesitancy for routine childhood and influenza vaccination and (2) examine associations between sociodemographic characteristics and hesitancy for routine childhood or influenza vaccination. METHODS: In February 2019, we surveyed families with children using the largest online panel generating representative US samples. After weighting, we assessed hesitancy using a modified 5-point Vaccine Hesitancy Scale and labeled parents as hesitant if they scored >3. RESULTS: A total of 2176 of 4445 parents sampled completed the survey (response rate 49%). Hesitancy prevalence was 6.1% for routine childhood and 25.8% for influenza vaccines; 12% strongly and 27% somewhat agreed they had concerns about serious side effects of both routine childhood and influenza vaccines. A total of 70% strongly agreed that routine childhood vaccines are effective versus 26% for influenza vaccine (P < .001). In multivariable models, an educational level lower than a bachelor's degree and household income <400% of the federal poverty level predicted hesitancy about both routine childhood and influenza vaccines. CONCLUSIONS: Almost 1 in 15 US parents are hesitant about routine childhood vaccines, whereas >1 in 4 are hesitant about influenza vaccine. Furthermore, 1 in 8 parents are concerned about vaccine safety for both routine childhood and influenza vaccines, and only 1 in 4 believe influenza vaccine is effective. Vaccine hesitancy, particularly for influenza vaccine, is prevalent in the United States.

The state of the antivaccine movement in the United States: A focused examination of nonmedical exemptions in states and counties.

In a Policy Forum, Peter Hotez and colleagues discuss vaccination exemptions in US states and possible consequences for infectious disease outbreaks.

Vaccine hesitancy, a public health problem.

The phenomenon of "vaccine hesitancy" has only been studied for a few years, and this attitude is becoming a serious threat that can frustrate the efforts of recent years that have led to the achievement of relevant scientific advances to human health. The paper analyzes the possible causes, the scope of the phenomenon and its consequences, trying to identify the most effective actions to resolve this trend.

Vaccination among Polish university students. Knowledge, beliefs and anti-vaccination attitudes.

Anti-vaccination movement has existed as long as the vaccines themselves, but its mode of action and social influences evolved over time. Such attitude with no doubt has negative impact on vaccination rates and eradication of infectious diseases. In this study, we used an online survey to examine vaccination attitudes of Polish university students of various degree and specialties. A total of 1,386 questionnaires were completed, among them 617 from students attending medical schools and 769 from students of non-medical schools. Up to 95.24% (N = 1320) of the study subjects, among them 98.70% and 92.46% of students of medical and non-medical specialties, respectively, declared willingness to vaccinate their children. 47.19% (N = 654) of participants have a contact with anti-vaccination propaganda at least once in a lifetimes. 42.64% (N = 591) of respondents were aware of the existence of anti-vaccination movements; 45.35% (N = 414) of participants, including 306 (51.52%) and 108 (33.86%) students of medical and non-medical disciplines, respectively, considered such movements as a negative phenomenon. Vaccination attitudes of students from medical and non-medical universities differed considerably. Vaccination knowledge and awareness among the students from non-medical universities were rather poor, markedly lower than in the students of medical disciplines. Nevertheless, irrespective of their major, Polish students have considerable knowledge gaps with regards to vaccination and need additional education in this matter.

A spatiotemporal analysis of non-medical exemptions from vaccination: California schools before and after SB277.

Childhood vaccination programs are considered one of the most beneficial public health programs in modern history. In the United States, the increasing use of non-medical exemptions (NMEs) from school entry vaccination requirements has garnered attention and scrutiny in the popular press, academic literature, and policy forums. In 2016, California law SB277 goes into effect, eliminating the NME option for students attending the state's public and private schools. Whereas SB277 is a strong move to increase vaccination coverage within California's schools, the new law contains an important caveat - students already having a valid NME (obtained prior to the 2016 school year) are "grandfathered" in until their next grade checkpoint (seventh grade). Although no new students will enter the California school system with a NME after 2016, the law's grandfather clause will allow NMEs to persist within the state school system until 2022. This analysis demonstrates how the past "build up" of students with pre-SB277 NMEs and the law's grandfather clause will act in combination to affect NME rates across the state after the implementation of SB277. We construct spatially explicit, yearly models of all students (K-12) enrolled in the California school system from 2011 to 2022. Our analysis finds that, although all regions of the state will eventually reach an NME rate of 0% by 2022, SB277's effect will be highly spatially and temporally variable. Some school districts will continue to experience elevated NME rates and increased risk of disease outbreak for years after SB277 is implemented. Our analysis highlights the potential spatially variant consequences of SB277's grandfather clause, providing important information for other states considering similar policy initiatives.