Milošević Đorđević J, Mari S, Vdović M, Milošević A
Faculty of Media and Communications, Singidunum University, Belgrade, Serbia; Institute for Political Studies, Belgrade, Serbia.
University of Milano-Bicocca, Milano, Italy.
Soc Sci Med. 2021 May;277:113930. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.113930. Epub 2021 Apr 13.
Immunization is a critical tool in the fight against infectious disease epidemics. Understanding hesitancy towards immunization is even more important nowadays, with the continuous threat of COVID-19 pandemic. Medical conspiracy beliefs, scientific skepticism, as well as low trust in governmental institutions, and evidence-based knowledge all have troubling effects on immunization.
To examine how these factors cross-react to influence vaccine behavior against any vaccine preventable disease (VPD), we hypothesized a model consisting of the belief in conspiracy theories as the predictor, and as the mediators subjective and objective vaccine knowledge, and trust in the health care system and science. The model was tested by examining the vaccine intentions for the children and self for any VPD.
Two separate studies were conducted on the representative samples of Serbian population; the first study investigated the intentions for child vaccination and the second study examined the vaccine intentions against any VPD, including adult vaccination. We used path analysis followed by logistic regression to analyze the data.
The results revealed high vaccine hesitancy motivated by the belief in the vaccine conspiracy theories, through its effect on reduced trust in medical science and institutions, and low objective vaccine knowledge.
The results of this study may be used to implement appropriate policy changes and implementation of the public health campaigns to promote immunization with a wide range of vaccines against common diseases, such as measles, human papillomaviruses, or pertussis, and novel diseases, such as COVID.
免疫接种是抗击传染病流行的关键工具。在新冠疫情持续威胁的当下，了解对免疫接种的犹豫态度更为重要。医学阴谋论信仰、科学怀疑主义，以及对政府机构的低信任度和循证知识，都会对免疫接种产生不良影响。
为了研究这些因素如何相互作用以影响针对任何疫苗可预防疾病（VPD）的疫苗接种行为，我们假设了一个模型，该模型以阴谋论信仰为预测因素，以主观和客观疫苗知识、对医疗保健系统和科学的信任为中介变量。通过研究儿童和成人针对任何VPD的疫苗接种意愿来检验该模型。
对塞尔维亚代表性人群样本进行了两项独立研究；第一项研究调查了儿童疫苗接种意愿，第二项研究考察了针对任何VPD（包括成人疫苗接种）的疫苗接种意愿。我们使用路径分析，随后进行逻辑回归来分析数据。
结果显示，由于对疫苗阴谋论的信仰，通过降低对医学科学和机构的信任以及减少客观疫苗知识，导致了较高的疫苗犹豫态度。
本研究结果可用于实施适当的政策变革和开展公共卫生运动，以促进针对常见疾病（如麻疹、人乳头瘤病毒或百日咳）以及新型疾病（如新冠）的多种疫苗的免疫接种。
