Cambridge, MA | April 24, 2014 – The drumbeat of headlines about the latest measles, mumps, or pertussis (whooping cough) outbreaks offers evidence of a frightening reality: growing numbers of parents are either delaying or selectively administering immunizations—or choosing not to vaccinate their children at all. A new report from the American Ƶ of Arts and Sciences makes clear that reversing this trend requires dedicated research on how vaccine decisions are made and the best ways to communicate factual information to vaccine-hesitant parents.
The report, Public Trust in Vaccines: Defining a Research Agenda, was announced today in magazine by study chairs Barry Bloom (Harvard School of Public Health), Edgar Marcuse (University of Washington), and Seth Mnookin (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). After addressing the dangers of not vaccinating children, it explains why it is crucial to understand the reasons that parents are ignoring the scientific evidence on the value of immunization and emphasizes the importance of research into the parent-provider relationship.
“If not curtailed, this trend will lead to even more frequent outbreaks of dangerous childhood diseases in the near future,” said Bloom. “Physicians, nurses, and other health professionals need a toolkit to engage the growing ranks of ‘vaccine-hesitant’ parents, and this toolkit can only be developed with robust scientific research.”
Public Trust in Vaccines identifies priorities for future research that would elucidate how health care providers can best communicate with undecided parents about the individual and community benefits of childhood vaccinations. Key questions include how and when attitudes and beliefs about vaccines are formed, how people make decisions about immunization, how best to present information about vaccines to hesitant parents, and how to identify communities at risk of vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks.
Public Trust in Vaccines: Defining a Research Agenda is available for download at www.amacad.org/vaccines.
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