Immunizations have led to a significant decrease in rates of vaccine-preventable diseases and have made a significant impact on the health of children. However, some parents express concerns about vaccine safety and the necessity of vaccines. The concerns of parents range from hesitancy about some immunizations to refusal of all vaccines. This clinical report provides information about addressi...

OBJECTIVE Influenza vaccine hesitancy is common in the primary care setting. Though physicians can affect caregivers' attitudes toward vaccination, physicians report uneasiness discussing vaccine hesitancy. Few studies have targeted physician-patient communication training as a means to decrease vaccination refusal. METHODS An immersive virtual reality (VR) curriculum was created to teach ped...

Vaccine hesitancy – which refers to “delays in acceptance or refusal these practitioners can actually address the fears of their vaccineof vaccination despite availability of vaccination services” – is a growing concern worldwide (MacDonald and SAGE Working Group on Vaccine Hesitancy, 2015). Vaccine hesitancy is increasingly being recognized as a barrier to immunization program success and heal...

page 424. There has been a somewhat surprising hesitancy on the part of the younger members of the medical profession in India to volunteer for service in the present emergency. Political opinions have been used rather as an excuse than a reason to this hesitancy, for no one will deny India's danger or the necessity to defend her shores and frontiers, and if these facts are accepted it is sheer...

As a scientist with epidemiologic training, it has long been clear to me that the benefits of vaccines outweigh the risks, both on the individual and on the societal level. Both of my children are fully immunized on the standard schedule. Many of my friends’ children are not. When my 8-year-old was a toddler, I once noted that he was the only child in a playgroup who had received all of his vac...

We believe that public health efforts to address issues of vaccine hesitancy should increase their focus on childhood education. An opportunity exists to create positive, accurate vaccine attitudes through fun and interactive approaches early in life. Leveraging digital technologies may provide a way to deliver these messages to children in a way that complements immune system and immunization ...

Health communication is an evolving field. There is evidence that communication can be an effective tool, if utilized in a carefully planned and integrated strategy, to influence the behaviours of populations on a number of health issues, including vaccine hesitancy. Experience has shown that key points to take into account in devising and implementing a communication plan include: (i) it is ne...

Intuitionistic preference relations constitute a flexible and simple representation format of experts’ preference on a set of alternative options, while at the same time allowing to accommodate degrees of hesitation inherent to all decision making processes. In comparison with fuzzy preference relations, the use of intuitionistic fuzzy preference relations in decision making is limited, which i...