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The influence of political ideology and trust on willingness to vaccinate.

ABSTRACT: In light of the increasing refusal of some parents to vaccinate children, public health strategies have focused on increasing knowledge and awareness based on a "knowledge-deficit" approach. However, decisions about vaccination are based on more than mere knowledge of risks, costs, and benefits. Individual decision making about vaccinating involves many other factors including those related to emotion, culture, religion, and socio-political context. In this paper, we use a nationally representative internet survey in the U.S. to investigate socio-political characteristics to assess attitudes about vaccination. In particular, we consider how political ideology and trust affect opinions about vaccinations for flu, pertussis, and measles. Our findings demonstrate that ideology has a direct effect on vaccine attitudes. In particular, conservative respondents are less likely to express pro-vaccination beliefs than other individuals. Furthermore, ideology also has an indirect effect on immunization propensity. The ideology variable predicts an indicator capturing trust in government medical experts, which in turn helps to explain individual-level variation with regards to attitudes about vaccine choice.

SUBMITTER: Baumgaertner B

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5784985 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The influence of political ideology and trust on willingness to vaccinate.

Baumgaertner Bert B Carlisle Juliet E JE Justwan Florian F

PloS one 20180125 1

In light of the increasing refusal of some parents to vaccinate children, public health strategies have focused on increasing knowledge and awareness based on a "knowledge-deficit" approach. However, decisions about vaccination are based on more than mere knowledge of risks, costs, and benefits. Individual decision making about vaccinating involves many other factors including those related to emotion, culture, religion, and socio-political context. In this paper, we use a nationally representat ...[more]

PMID: 29370265

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Project description:ObjectiveThe impact of cognitive function and decline on political ideology is unknown. We studied the relationship between cognition and both political orientation and political policy choices in a population of older persons.DesignLongitudinal investigation.SettingA retirement community and its surroundings in Southern California.Participants151 members of a longitudinal investigation of aging and dementia in the oldest-old (the 90+ Study), mean age 95 years.MeasurementsParticipants self-reported their political ideology (7-point scale from extremely liberal to extremely conservative) and policy preferences for federal spending on public schooling, aid to the poor, and protecting the environment, as well as on preferences on immigration rates, death penalty, and university admission. The same political survey was mailed to participants twice: at time one and 6-months later. Cognitive function based on neurological examination and cognitive testing was classified as normal (55%), cognitive impairment/not dementia (CIND) (33%), or dementia (12%). We calculated rank correlations between ideology and policy choices, stratified by cognitive status, and agreement between Surveys 1 and 2.ResultsPolitical ideology/orientation was highly consistent over a six-month period (84% agreement) among the 122 who returned the second survey, with no significant relationship to cognitive status. Among cognitively impaired (CIND and dementia), however, there was significant loss of consistency between an individual's political orientation and their policy choices. Level of political engagement was high for participants, with more than 90% voting in the 2016 presidential election.ConclusionIn this population of older persons, political identification on the liberal-conservative spectrum was resilient despite cognitive decline, but its meaning and function were changed. For the cognitively impaired it remained a self-defining label, but no longer operated as a higher order framework for orienting specific policy preferences. There appeared to be loss of coherence between the political orientation and political policy choices of cognitively impaired individuals. Given the high level of political engagement of these individuals, these results have substantial public policy implications.

Dataset Information

The influence of political ideology and trust on willingness to vaccinate.

Publications

The influence of political ideology and trust on willingness to vaccinate.

Similar Datasets

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