Students Address the Challenge of Eradicating Vaccine Hesitancy

The rise of the anti-vaccine movement has caused a spike in contagious diseases around the country. The hesitancy to vaccinate has grown so much in the last few years that the World Health Organization included it among the top 10 threats to global health in 2019, and highlighted an erosion of public trust driven by the spread of misinformation by the anti-vaccine movement and others on a recently released list of the top health-related challenges the world will face in the next decade.

But the doubt surrounding vaccinations didn’t appear overnight. SJU seniors Michael Fontana and Lauren Rutt studied the growth of vaccine hesitancy as part of an interdisciplinary Summer Scholars research project. The resulting paper, “Vaccinations and the Influence of Social Media in the United States,” was recently accepted for publication in the Journal of Neonatology and Clinical Pediatrics.

“We really wanted to analyze the legal, ethical, social and medical viewpoints of vaccine hesitancy,” says Fontana, a biology major and fellow in the Institute of Clinical Bioethics. Fontana focused on the legal argument while Rutt, a double major in marketing and business intelligence and analytics, examined the anti vaccine movement’s social component. The pair’s mentor, Peter Clark, S.J., Ph.D., director of the Institute of Clinical Bioethics, analyzed the ethics surrounding vaccine hesitancy. The team also worked with a medical resident at Mercy Catholic Medical Center to understand the medical point of view.

“This approach to this project — combining business, communications and social media to look at a medical issue — is unique,” says Clark. “It hasn’t been done before.”

The team found that one of the struggles in combating vaccine hesitancy is the way that anti-vaccine information spreads online, particularly on Facebook, which they say is the platform that tends to have the highest volume of anti-vaccine messaging.

“Anti-vaccine media is … not always out in the open, on peoples’ timelines or news feeds for others to comment on, but rather it is in closed groups,” Fontana says. “This is where inaccurate information can be spread and change a parent’s decision to vaccinate.”

But Facebook isn’t the only source of misinformation about vaccines, and the hesitancy to vaccinate comes from a number of sources, including religious and ethical objections. The team’s paper recommends looking to Europe as a model for confronting the issue. Many European countries there have adopted Tailoring Immunization Programs (TIP), a WHO initiative designed to help public health officials identify the unique barriers and motivators that might be preventing parents in their nation from vaccinating their children -- and also come up with strategies to combat them. Techniques range from mandating vaccines to launching targeted educational campaigns.

“Because social media has the power to connect thousands of individuals on a single post, the spread of misinformation can be almost immediate and difficult to thwart after it is published,” Fontana says. “We think that some of our recommendations can ethically and practically boost pro-vaccination media tactics.”

Some U.S. states have implemented steps similar to TIP programs. Five states -- California, Maine, Mississippi, New York and West Virginia -- have passed laws that severely restrict exemptions from vaccinations based on religious or personal beliefs. While a similar bill was recently abandoned by lawmakers in New Jersey, Fontana hopes that such initiatives will eventually spread in the U.S.

“We want to see if this trend will be contagious around the U.S.,” he says, “and if it is successful in increasing the number of immunizations administered in vaccine hesitant communities.”

Fontana and Rutt were among 98 students who worked with 57 SJU faculty members representing 23 departments and programs in the 2019 Summer Scholars program. Along with the opportunity to focus on a creative scholarly project under the direction of a faculty mentor, students receive a stipend and the opportunity for on-campus housing at a reduced rate. The deadline for the completed application and proposal for the 2020 Summer Scholars program is Feb. 3.