Child vaccine hesitancy in a post-COVID-19 context: communication challenges

• Grant number: 23/17912-4
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: July 01, 2024
• End date: June 30, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Collective Health - Preventive Medicine
• Principal Investigator: Marcia Thereza Cavalcanti Couto
• Grantee: Marcia Thereza Cavalcanti Couto
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Medicina (FM). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Camila Carvalho de Souza Amorim Matos ; Carolina Luísa Alves Barbieri ; Cristiane Spadacio ; Paulo Henrique Nico Monteiro ; Vivian Helena Iida Avelino da Silva
• Associated scholarship(s): 25/01670-7 - Childhood vaccine hesitancy in the post-COVID-19 context: communication challenges, BP.TT

Abstract

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has accentuated and complicated the phenomenon of childhood vaccine hesitancy. Three broad and related dimensions will be addressed: 1. Facilitators and barriers to communication in childhood vaccine hesitancy in the post-COVID-19 context. 2. Specificities of (dis)confidence in vaccines/vaccination and the effects of different communication strategies on the perceptions and decision-making of parents/caregivers. 3. Communicational challenges for managers, health professionals and Primary Health Care (PHC) services in tackling childhood vaccine hesitancy and the drop in childhood vaccination coverage in the post-COVID-19 context. The main objective is to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the phenomenon of childhood vaccine hesitancy in its multidimensionality in different social groups in São Paulo/SP and the communicational challenges for health professionals and managers. The research, qualitative with triangulation of data production techniques, is structured around three axes: 1. Exploratory sequential mixed systematic review of communication facilitators and barriers in the field of childhood vaccine hesitancy in the post-COVID-19 context. 2. Focus groups to characterize and analyze the perceptions, beliefs and attitudes of parents/caregivers concerning (non) childhood vaccination. 3. Semi-structured interviews with managers and PHC professionals about the communication challenges in tackling childhood vaccine hesitancy and the drop in vaccination coverage. The theoretical-methodological perspective used will be that of intersectionality in conjunction with conceptual health discussions in the social sciences about risk, refusal, autonomy, communication and the individual-place-society relationship. (AU)