Global Health Unit, Centre for Primary Care and Public Health, Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK.
Eur J Public Health. 2019 Jun 1;29(3):512-516. doi: 10.1093/eurpub/ckz004.
Parents' reluctance to vaccinate their children undermines the effectiveness of vaccination programmes in Western Europe. There is anecdotal evidence suggesting a connection between the rise of political populism and vaccine hesitancy.
This paper analyses national-level data to examine the link between political populism and vaccine hesitancy in Western Europe. Political populism is operationalised as the percentage of people in a country who voted for populist parties in the 2014 European Parliament elections. Vaccine hesitancy is operationalised as the percentage of people in a country who believe that vaccines are not important, safe and effective according to data from the Vaccine Confidence Project (2015).
There is a highly significant positive association between the percentage of people in a country who voted for populist parties and who believe that vaccines are not important (R = 0.7923, P = 0.007) and effective (R = 0.7222, P = 0.0035). The percentage of people who think vaccines are unsafe just misses being significant at the 5% level (R = 0.5027, P = 0.0669).
Vaccine hesitancy and political populism are driven by similar dynamics: a profound distrust in elites and experts. It is necessary for public health scholars and actors to work to build trust with parents that are reluctant to vaccinate their children, but there are limits to this strategy. The more general popular distrust of elites and experts which informs vaccine hesitancy will be difficult to resolve unless its underlying causes-the political disenfranchisement and economic marginalisation of large parts of the Western European population-are also addressed.
家长不愿为孩子接种疫苗，这削弱了西欧疫苗接种计划的效果。有传闻证据表明，政治民粹主义的兴起与疫苗犹豫之间存在关联。
本文通过分析国家层面的数据，考察了西欧政治民粹主义与疫苗犹豫之间的联系。政治民粹主义的定义是一个国家中投票支持民粹主义政党的人数占比，这一数据来源于 2014 年欧洲议会选举。疫苗犹豫的定义是一个国家中认为疫苗不重要、不安全和有效的人数占比，这一数据来源于疫苗信心项目（2015 年）。
一个国家中投票支持民粹主义政党的人数占比与认为疫苗不重要（R = 0.7923，P = 0.007）和有效的人数占比之间存在高度显著的正相关关系。认为疫苗不安全的人数占比接近显著水平（R = 0.5027，P = 0.0669）。
疫苗犹豫和政治民粹主义是由相似的动力驱动的：对精英和专家的深深不信任。公共卫生学者和相关人士有必要努力与不愿为孩子接种疫苗的家长建立信任，但这种策略是有限度的。更广泛的民众对精英和专家的普遍不信任，是导致疫苗犹豫的原因，除非其根本原因——西欧大部分人口的政治权利被剥夺和经济边缘化——也得到解决，否则这种不信任将难以消除。
