Contextualizing educational differences in "vaccination uptake": A thirty nation survey

Kirils Makarovs*, P.H.J. Achterberg

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

28 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This paper addresses the issue of public acceptance of vaccination with specific attention being paid to the role of education in vaccine uptake. Using Flash Eurobarometer 287 (2009) survey data and exploring it through the lens of Beck's reflexive modernization and Roger's protection motivation theories we examined how individual-level factors affect intention to get vaccinated, particularly aimed at examining whether higher education predicts more or less vaccination intention in different societies. The empirical results support an idea that at least for seasonal flu educational differences in vaccination uptake are contextual upon the reflexivity of the society in which respondent happens to live. Educated people living in more reflexive modernized countries tend to oppose vaccination against seasonal flu more that those highly educated living in less advanced societies, indicating that skeptical attitude towards science that is intrinsic to the modern post-industrial nations induces the immunization opposition among most informed and distrustful social group. (c) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-10
JournalSocial Science & Medicine
Volume188
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2017

Keywords

  • Vaccination uptake
  • Seasonal flu
  • Pandemic H1N1 influenza
  • Reflexive modernization
  • Protection motivation
  • Science skepticism
  • Multi-level modelling
  • PROTECTION MOTIVATION
  • ATTITUDE-CHANGE
  • FEAR APPEALS
  • INFLUENZA
  • IMMUNIZATION
  • ACCEPTANCE
  • MODELS
  • HEALTH

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