Understanding vaccine hesitancy in Canada: Results of a consultation study by the Canadian Immunization Research Network

"Vaccine hesitancy" is a concept now frequently used in vaccination discourse. The increased popularity of this concept in both academic and public health circles is challenging previously held perspectives that individual vaccination attitudes and behaviours are a simple dichotomy of accept or reject. A consultation study was designed to assess the opinions of experts and health professionals concerning the definition, scope, and causes of vaccine hesitancy in Canada. We sent online surveys to two panels (1- vaccination experts and 2- front-line vaccine providers). Two questionnaires were completed by each panel, with data from the first questionnaire informing the development of questions for the second. Our participants defined vaccine hesitancy as an attitude (doubts, concerns) as well as a behaviour (refusing some / many vaccines, delaying vaccination). Our findings also indicate that both vaccine experts and front-line vaccine providers have the perception that vaccine rates have been declining and consider vaccine hesitancy an important issue to address in Canada. Diffusion of negative information online and lack of knowledge about vaccines were identified as the key causes of vaccine hesitancy by the participants. A common understanding of vaccine hesitancy among researchers, public health experts, policy-makers and health care providers will better guide interventions that can more effectively address vaccine hesitancy within Canada

Measles, mickey, and the media: Anti-vaxxers and health risk narratives during the 2015 Disneyland outbreak

Background Outbreaks of disease are common fodder for political debate and public discourse. In the past decade alone, health officials have faced a steady stream of serious public health threats, from H1N1 to Ebola and Zika, as well as large outbreaks of measles and other highly contagious illnesses. These incidents command intense media attention and focus public conversation around questions of risk and responsibility. Analysis This article examines major frames in Canadian news coverage of the Disneyland measles outbreak in 2015 to show how public health events are translated into social problems that magnify moral and political concerns. It discusses how parents who reject or express worries about vaccination were portrayed, and traces which solutions were presented to address the problem of vaccine preventable illness. Conclusion and implications Media coverage focused heavily on "anti-vaxxers" as central characters in the outbreak story. The coverage conformed largely to an established biomedical narrative, in which medical and health experts set the definitional parameters around the outbreak causes and consequences, and the preventive measures that should be taken to prevent future occurrences