Challenging Social Norms to Overcome Vaccine Hesitancy
In the last year, there has been an outbreak of measles across the globe. Some argue that these outbreaks, at least in the developed world, can be linked in to lower vaccination rates and overall distrust of vaccines. But why are some families reluctant to vaccinate their children?
DeltaMV utilizes behavioural science model whereby ‘social’ is a key pillar in understanding human behaviour. (Remember: Make it easy! Make it social! Make it emotional!) Elisa Sobo’s research highlights the importance of the social aspect in her quest to understand vaccine hesitancy.
Sobo, a medical anthropologist at San Diego State University, says this hesitancy may be driven in part by a desire to conform to communities where other parents are sceptical of vaccines. In these communities, “Distrust of vaccines may be almost as contagious as measles,” says Sobo.
She tested her theory by interviewing families from communities in California with low vaccination rates and found that this scepticism was ‘socially cultivated.’ In her research, she discovered that often parents/families did not arrive at school with any hesitancy toward vaccinations; but as they became members of the community over time, they gradually adopted this hesitancy into their practice and beliefs.
Here’s where BE comes into play. Sobo suggests this behaviour is ‘cultivated’ or in other words, parents and families are following the social norms of the community. Social norms is a cognitive bias whereby people tend to do or believe things because many other people do or believe the same thing, (especially within a given community)!
Sobo found that in areas with low vaccination rates, people tended to be more open or vocal about not vaccinating their children. When you live in a community where not vaccinating is accepted or even encouraged, there are social costs of holding a contradictory opinion. We all want to fit in after all! Furthermore, Sobo found that the same social norms applied informal pressure in communities with the opposite perspective—parents who didn’t want to vaccinate their children in these communities might be socially isolated for their choice.
This is an excellent example of how powerful social norms can be on influencing an individual’s behaviour. Here we see that the behaviour of parents and families is not shaped by facts (in reality, most of the people Sobo interviewed were highly educated) but instead driven by a desire to conform to the norms of a community.
While there is no single answer to the problem of vaccine hesitancy, behavioural science can help identify some potential solutions as in the following Australian case study.
Dr. Leeb, an Australian GP, recognised the problem of vaccine hesitancy within his own community in Western Australia and created the ‘SmartVax’ technology. This technology works by automatically texting patients three days after receiving the flu shot to see if they experience any adverse events, for example. This technology is not limited to collecting data about flu vaccinations alone.
Up until this point, there was limited local AE data regarding vaccines, because patients would have to manually call their local health authority to report their AEs. Using this new method, about 75% of patients responded to the text message. The data is public and gives clinicians a powerful tool when consulting families about the safety of vaccines.
Clinicians are able to access their local data via the SmartVax tool. When parents are concerned about vaccinations or their children receiving multiple vaccinations at a time, clinicians can quell their concerns by saying, ‘This is local data. This is Australian data. We are not pulling data from elsewhere.”
If we understand vaccine hesitancy as a social issue, then one should identify the key influencers within a given community and strengthen their credibility. In this previous example in Australia, clinicians were empowered with local data to challenge opponents of vaccinations and empower proponents of vaccinations.
At the end of the day, every parent wants what’s best for his or her child. No one wants his or her child to get sick; but by refusing a vaccine, you are not only putting your child at risk but the entire community. So changing a community’s behaviour or social norms, requires makes the issue both social and local.