Study: Social networks play significant role in parents’ decision to vaccinate

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 16:04:00 +0000

A new study found that an overwhelming majority of vaccination "naysayer" parents surveyed were influenced by friends, family and other non-medical peer recommendations when deciding whether or not to vaccinate their child, leading researchers to conclude that changing parents’ attitudes about vaccines may be a matter of influencing their influencers.

Researchers surveyed 196 parents of children 18 months or younger in a Seattle county with vaccination rates below the national average: 126 of these parents followed the national recommendations on childhood-vaccination from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), while 70 delayed vaccination, partially vaccinated or didn't vaccinate their child at all.

While both were informed by friends and family, peer influence in the vaccination "naysayer" group was a much bigger factor than in vaccine "conforming" circles, researchers found. Advice from social networks "blew any other variable out of the water” for vaccine doubters, Emily Brunson, who conducted the research as an anthropology graduate student at the University of Washington, told Time magazine. It “was more important in terms of predicting what parents decide to do than any other factor, including parents’ own opinions," she added.

The Daily Beast’s shameful anti-vaccine rant

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 16:51:00 +0000

Deirdre Imus, the anti-vaccine activist whose expertise rests entirely in being the founder of her own “environmental health center,” doesn’t want you to get the flu shot this year. Why? Because, despite countless studies to the contrary, she believes it is to blame for a whole host of neurological disorders -- and deaths.

So let’s talk about flu-related deaths. Now, states do not have to report flu deaths among adults, and the cause of death for people with complications or secondary infections from the flu is not always clear. As a result, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not know exactly how many people die from seasonal flu each year, though the figure has been estimated at between 3,000 and 36,000.

But what we do know is that the flu has peaked quickly this year. And we also know that there were 22,048 cases of flu reported in the last three months of 2012, compared with 849 flu cases in the same period in 2011. And 20 children have already died from the flu in the same time period.

Salon.com > vaccine

Study: Social networks play significant role in parents’ decision to vaccinate

The Daily Beast’s shameful anti-vaccine rant