Protocol for the Mason: Health Starts Here prospective cohort study of young adult college students.

BACKGROUND: Young adulthood is a period of increasing independence for the 40% of young adults enrolled in U.S. colleges. Previous research indicates differences in how students' health behaviors develop and vary by gender, race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. George Mason University is a state institution that enrolls a highly diverse student population, making it an ideal setting to launch a longitudinal cohort study using multiple research methods to evaluate the effects of health behaviors on physical and psychological functioning, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. RESULTS: Mason: Health Starts Here was developed as a longitudinal cohort study of successive waves of first year students that aims to improve understanding of the natural history and determinants of young adults' physical health, mental health, and their role in college completion. The study recruits first year students who are 18 to 24 years old and able to read and understand English. All incoming first year students are recruited through various methods to participate in a longitudinal cohort for 4 years. Data collection occurs in fall and spring semesters, with online surveys conducted in both semesters and in-person clinic visits conducted in the fall. Students receive physical examinations during clinic visits and provide biospecimens (blood and saliva). CONCLUSIONS: The study will produce new knowledge to help understand the development of health-related behaviors during young adulthood. A long-term goal of the cohort study is to support the design of effective, low-cost interventions to encourage young adults' consistent performance of healthful behaviors, improve their mental health, and improve academic performance.

Rhetorical Appeals and Tactics in New York Times Comments About Vaccines: Qualitative Analysis.

BACKGROUND: Improving persuasion in response to vaccine skepticism is a long-standing problem. Elective nonvaccination emerging from skepticism about vaccine safety and efficacy jeopardizes herd immunity, exposing those who are most vulnerable to the risk of serious diseases. OBJECTIVE: This article analyzes vaccine sentiments in the New York Times as a way of improving understanding of why existing persuasive approaches may be ineffective and offers insight into how existing methods might be improved. We categorize pro-vaccine and anti-vaccine arguments, offering an in-depth analysis of pro-vaccine appeals and tactics in particular to enhance current understanding of arguments that support vaccines. METHODS: Qualitative thematic analyses were used to analyze themes in rhetorical appeals across 808 vaccine-specific comments. Pro-vaccine and anti-vaccine comments were categorized to provide a broad analysis of the overall context of vaccine comments across viewpoints, with in-depth rhetorical analysis of pro-vaccine comments to address current gaps in understanding of pro-vaccine arguments in particular. RESULTS: Appeals across 808 anti-vaccine and pro-vaccine comments were similar, though these appeals diverged in tactics and conclusions. Anti-vaccine arguments were more heterogeneous, deploying a wide range of arguments against vaccines. Additional analysis of pro-vaccine comments reveals that these comments use rhetorical strategies that could be counterproductive to producing persuasion. Pro-vaccine comments more frequently used tactics such as ad hominem arguments levied at those who refuse vaccines or used appeals to science to correct beliefs in vaccine skepticism, both of which can be ineffective when attempting to persuade a skeptical audience. CONCLUSIONS: Further study of pro-vaccine argumentation appeals and tactics could illuminate how persuasiveness could be improved in online forums.

Healthy bodies, toxic medicines: college students and the rhetorics of flu vaccination.

This article examines flu vaccination beliefs and practices produced during a survey of undergraduate students in Spring 2012 (IRB#10-732). This research uses the methods of rhetorical analysis - or the study of persuasive features and arguments used in language - to examine statements respondents made regarding flu and flu vaccine. In these responses, students generated unique categories of arguments about the perceived dangers of flu vaccination, including the assertion that vaccines cause disease (including illnesses and conditions other than flu), that vaccines are toxic medicines, and that vaccines carry unknown, population-wide risks that are inadequately acknowledged. This study provides insight into vaccination beliefs and rationales among a population at risk of flu (college students) and suggests that further study of this population may yield important keys to addressing flu vaccine concerns as expressed by college students. Rhetorical analysis also offers a useful set of methods to understanding vaccination beliefs and practices, adding to existing methods of study and analysis of vaccination practices and beliefs in medicine and public health.

Reframing medicine's publics: the local as a public of vaccine refusal.

Although medical and public health practitioners aim for high rates of vaccination, parent vaccination concerns confound doctors and complicate doctor-patient interactions. Medical and public health researchers have studied and attempted to counter antivaccination sentiments, but recommended approaches to dispel vaccination concerns have failed to produce long-lasting effects. We use observations made during a small study in a rural area in a southeastern state to demonstrate how a shift away from analyzing vaccination skepticism as a national issue with a global remedy reveals the nuances in vaccination sentiments based on locality. Instead of seeing antivaccinationists as a distinct public based on statistical commonalities, we argue that examining vaccination beliefs and practices at the local level offers a fuller picture of the contextualized nature of vaccination decisions within the psychosocial spaces of families. A view of vaccination that emphasizes the local public, rather than a globally conceived antivaccination public, enables medical humanists and rhetoricians to offer important considerations for improving communications about vaccinations in clinical settings.