Understanding parental vaccine refusal: Implicit and explicit associations about vaccines as potential building blocks of vaccine beliefs and behavior.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

A movement of parents refusing vaccines for their children has contributed to increasingly large outbreaks of diseases that are preventable by vaccines. Research has identified multiple factors that relate to parents' vaccination behaviors (i.e., whether not they vaccinate their children), including their beliefs about vaccines' safety and utility and their trust in those who recommend vaccines. Here we examine the role of more fundamental psychological processes that may contribute to multiple vaccine-related beliefs and behaviors: cognitive associations.

Methods

Using a large sample of U.S. parents (pre-COVID-19), we investigated parents' associations between vaccines and helpfulness/harmfulness, as well as between the self and vaccines (vaccine identity), and th

SUBMITTER: Howell JL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9374490 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature