Introduction
Immunization can have a significant impact on children's health. It is the most meaningful innovation of the past century to prevent diseases. The effectiveness of vaccines has, however, come under fire in recent years from many organizations and people. There has been a significant increase in several parents postponing or rejecting childhood vaccines. The most common belief among patients refusing vaccines is they are unnecessary or concerned about developing autism (neurodevelopmental disorder).
What Is Vaccine Hesitancy?
According to the World Health Organization, vaccine hesitancy has been described as a behavior influenced by various factors, including problems with confidence (Lacking trust in the vaccine or its provider), complacency (not finding vaccine relevant), or convenience (accessibility).
Vaccine hesitancy can include individuals or groups with differing opinions about specific. Such people may accept all vaccinations while still wary, refuse or postpone only a few vaccinations, or postpone all vaccinations. Parents who refuse all vaccines are firm in their beliefs and do not conform to pediatricians attempting to change their attitude.
Vaccine opposition is not new and has existed since the early 1800s in Europe. The smallpox vaccine made from cowpox lesions faced more resistance. Laws mandating the vaccination had been passed. Although vaccine hesitancy is not new, it can have more significant public health implications today as ease of travel has caused the disease to spread more quickly.
What Is the Categorization of Parental Attitude Towards Vaccines?
Parental attitudes are categorized as:
- Immunization Advocate: Parents are of the view that vaccines are necessary and safe. Parents have a cordial relationship with their doctor.
- Go Along to Get Along Attitude: Despite inadequate knowledge of vaccines, parents frequently vaccinate their children without question.
- Cautious Acceptor: Parents vaccinate their children despite having a few minor reservations regarding vaccines.
- Fence Sitters: Parents are knowledgeable about vaccines and have various concerns. Such parents may vaccinate their children or delay vaccinating. The parents have a neutral relationship with their doctor.
- Refuser: Due to their mistrust of the medical establishment, safety worries, or religious convictions, parents frequently refuse all vaccinations.
What Are Parental Concerns About Vaccines?
The parental concerns are:
- Safety of vaccines.
- Administering too many vaccines in a single visit.
- Risk for developing autism.
- Concerns about vaccine additives like thimerosal and aluminum.
- Possibility of immune system overload.
- Severe adverse reaction or long-term side-effect development.
- Inadequate investigation before marketing.
- It can cause the child pain or induce sickness.
- Parents do not see the need for vaccines or believe vaccines do not work.
- Lack of trust in public health, doctors, government, or pharmaceutical companies.
- Ethical, moral, and religious practices.
How Are Vaccines Developed and Tested?
Developing vaccines is a long and tedious procedure, including years of work and combined efforts of public and private partnerships. After proving their safety and effectiveness in lengthy investigations, the vaccinations are produced, tested, regulated, and finally released for commercial use.
The first step includes the identification of vaccine needs and understanding the mechanism of protective immunity against the disease. If the vaccine appears promising in preclinical studies, the vaccine sponsors apply to the drug-regulating body to investigate new drugs. According to law, the sponsor must describe the manufacturing and testing process, summarize laboratory reports, and provide details on studies to evaluate the vaccine. Vaccines undergo phases I to III testing.
Phase I determines vaccine safety and the extent of immune response to them. Phase II involves testing a larger volunteer group, some with disease risk. A trial with a control and randomized group is conducted for vaccine testing. Phase III trials help determine whether the vaccine prevents the disease or is safe for larger population groups. It is licensed if the vaccine is efficient during all the trial stages.
Even after the vaccine gets licensed, there are measures to ensure vaccine safety. The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System was designed to report adverse events regarding vaccines.
What Are the Current Vaccine Beliefs?
The success of the vaccine programs is represented by herd immunity (indirect protection from contagious disease). The proportion of people in a community who must have herd immunity varies from 30 to 95 percent, depending on the disease. Traditionally, mandatory vaccination of children in care centers and schools helped achieve herd immunity. At present, there is an availability of personal belief exemptions from vaccinations.
Children who do not take vaccines are not only at risk for developing vaccine-preventable diseases but also subject vaccinated and medically exempt children to disease. A disease that develops in children can be waning immunity after vaccination or a lack of adequate immune response to vaccines.
What Are the Factors Affecting Vaccine Acceptance?
The public is eager to accept the new vaccination when a disease outbreak emerges with significant morbidity and mortality. After the vaccine is developed and efficacious, the public gets vaccinated, coverage is improved, and there is a decline in disease rate. The total number of reported adverse events following immunization may rise during the height of vaccine coverage.
These adverse events reports result in a lack of confidence in vaccines among the general public. Consequently, there will be a rise in vaccine resistance and a comeback of the disease. Again, when the disease burden increases, vaccine acceptance improves, and vaccination rates improve.
What Measures Can Overcome Vaccine Hesitancy?
Healthcare professionals must address parental worries. For example, some patients may have concerns about HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccine safety and triggering early sexual activity. Reassuring patients with relevant evidence can help dispel their concerns. Parents may be concerned about pain with immunizations. Health providers must form strategies to reduce pain by injecting vaccines quickly without aspiration, holding the child upright, injecting painful vaccines at last, and providing tactile stimulation.
Other pain reduction tools are breastfeeding, feeding sweet-tasting solutions, and topical anesthetics. For older children, distraction strategies like pinwheels, deep breathing exercises, and toys can reduce anxiety and pain. Healthcare providers must clear patient's doubts about vaccine production and composition by providing relevant information. For concerns regarding mercury in vaccines, patients can be assured that none of the single-dose vaccine preparations for infants contain mercury.
Conclusion
Healthcare providers must adapt and implement health communication interventions and strategies to mitigate vaccine hesitancy against childhood vaccines. Parents must be educated early in pregnancy regarding the benefits of administering childhood vaccines. Communicating proper information and resolving patient's concerns can help.
