Vaccinations and Public Concern in Historyexplores vernacular beliefs and practices that surround decisions not to vaccinate. Through the use of ethnographic, media, and narrative analyses, this book explores the vernacular explanatory models used in inoculation decision-making. The research on which the book draws was designed to help create public health education programs and promotional materials that respond to patients’ fears, understandings of risk, concerns, and doubts. Exploring the nature of inoculation distrust and miscommunication, Dr. Andrea Kitta identifies areas that require better public health communication and greater cultural sensitivity in the handling of inoculation programs.

The public has voiced concern over the adverse effects of vaccines from the moment Dr. Edward Jenner introduced the first smallpox vaccine in 1796. The controversy over childhood immunization intensified in 1998, when Dr. Andrew Wakefield linked the MMR vaccine to autism. Although Wakefield’s findings were later discredited and retracted, and medical and scientific evidence suggests routine immunizations have significantly reduced life-threatening conditions like measles, whooping cough, and polio, vaccine refusal and vaccine-preventable outbreaks are on the rise. This book explores vaccine hesitancy and refusal among parents in the industrialized North. Although biomedical, public health, and popular science literature has focused on a scientifically ignorant public, the real problem, Maya J. Goldenberg argues, lies not in misunderstanding, but in mistrust. Public confidence in scientific institutions and government bodies has been shaken by fraud, research scandals, and misconduct. Her book reveals how vaccine studies sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry, compelling rhetorics from the anti-vaccine movement, and the spread of populist knowledge on social media have all contributed to a public mistrust of the scientific consensus. Importantly, it also emphasizes how historical and current discrimination in health care against marginalized communities continues to shape public perception of institutional trustworthiness. Goldenberg ultimately reframes vaccine hesitancy as a crisis of public trust rather than a war on science, arguing that having good scientific support of vaccine efficacy and safety is not enough. In a fraught communications landscape, Vaccine Hesitancy advocates for trust-building measures that focus on relationships, transparency, and justice.

Smallpox, measles, diphtheria, polio: vaccines have diminished their power, and in some cases, eradicated these dreaded diseases. Yet this century has seen growing numbers of parents refusing vaccinations for their children, not only endangering them but also increasing the risk of outbreaks and epidemics of vaccine-preventable diseases. Understanding and Managing Vaccine Concerns concisely explains the evolution of vaccine concerns, and gives clinicians hands-on help in dealing with vaccine hesitation and outright refusal among parents. Persistent themes in refusal, such as a supposed autism/vaccine link and the belief that too many vaccines are given too soon, are discussed and recent statistics given for trends in vaccine refusal and delay. Central to the book is a detailed guide to vaccine concern management, with sample responses that readers can tailor to address vaccine refusal and specific concerns regarding individual vaccines and their components. This thorough grounding will assist providers in countering misinformation with facts and allaying fears with medically and ethically sound responses. Included in this practical resource: A brief history of vaccine concerns. Current trends in vaccine hesitancy and refusal. Health implications of vaccine refusal. Characteristics and beliefs of vaccine-concerned parents. The CASE approach: a management strategy for vaccine concerns. Additional considerations in management strategies. The debate over vaccination isn't going away any time soon and neither is the potential threat to public health, making Understanding and Managing Vaccine Concerns a timely and necessary addition to the libraries of pediatricians, nurses and other healthcare providers.

This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. Mass vaccination campaigns are political projects that presume to protect individuals, communities, and societies. Like other pervasive expressions of state power - taxing, policing, conscripting - mass vaccination arouses anxiety in some people but sentiments of civic duty and shared solidarity in others. This collection of essays gives a comparative overview of vaccination at different times, in widely different places and under different types of political regime. Core themes in the chapters include immunisation as an element of state formation; citizens' articulation of seeing (or not seeing) their needs incorporated into public health practice; allegations that donors of development aid have too much influence on third-world health policies; and an ideological shift that regards vaccines more as profitable commodities than as essential tools of public health.

This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. This book is available as an open access ebook under a CC-BY-NC-ND licence. Vaccinating Britain shows how the British public has played a central role in the development of vaccination policy since the Second World War. It explores the relationship between the public and public health through five key vaccines – diphtheria, smallpox, poliomyelitis, whooping cough and measles-mumps-rubella (MMR). It reveals that while the British public has embraced vaccination as a safe, effective and cost-efficient form of preventative medicine, demand for vaccination and trust in the authorities that provide it has ebbed and flowed according to historical circumstances. It is the first book to offer a long-term perspective on vaccination across different vaccine types. This history provides context for students and researchers interested in present-day controversies surrounding public health immunisation programmes. Historians of the post-war British welfare state will find valuable insight into changing public attitudes towards institutions of government and vice versa.

Vaccinations and Public Concern in History explores vernacular beliefs and practices that surround decisions not to vaccinate. Through the use of ethnographic, media, and narrative analyses, this book explores the vernacular explanatory models used in inoculation decision-making. The research on which the book draws was designed to help create public health education programs and promotional materials that respond to patients’ fears, understandings of risk, concerns, and doubts. Exploring the nature of inoculation distrust and miscommunication, Dr. Andrea Kitta identifies areas that require better public health communication and greater cultural sensitivity in the handling of inoculation programs.

While vaccination rates have soared and cases of preventable infections have plummeted, an increasingly vocal cross section of Americans have questioned the safety and necessity of vaccines. In Vaccine Nation, Elena Conis explores this complicated history and its consequences for personal and public health.