The term 'social vaccine' is designed to encourage the biomedically orientated health sector to recognize the legitimacy of action on the distal social and economic determinants of health. It is proposed as a term to assist the health promotion movement in arguing for a social view of health which is so often counter to medical and popular conceptions of health. The idea of a social vaccine builds on a long tradition in social medicine as well as on a biomedical tradition of preventing illness through vaccines that protect against disease. Social vaccines would be promoted as a means to encourage popular mobilization and advocacy to change the social and economic structural conditions that render people and communities vulnerable to disease. They would facilitate social and political processes that develop popular and political will to protect and promote health through action (especially governments prepared to intervene and regulate to protect community health) on the social and economic determinants. Examples provided for the effects of social vaccines are: restoring land ownership to Indigenous peoples, regulating the advertising of harmful products and progressive taxation for universal social protection. Social vaccines require more research to improve understanding of social and political processes that are likely to improve health equity worldwide. The vaccine metaphor should be helpful in arguing for increased action on the social determinants of health.

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background: among the many processes responsible for antimicrobial resistance, inappropriate antibiotic use and self-medication are major public health concerns. To tackle antibiotic resistance and its widespread misuse, is important to identify the social, cultural, and economic differences associated with the problem. Objective: to determine the percentage of antibiotics used without medical prescription in children under five years old with symptoms of upper respiratory tract infection according to their families' socioeconomic characteristics in Ecuador. Materials and Methods: a cross-sectional design was set, using a structured questionnaire to assess mothers who attended urban and rural primary health care units with their children under five years old and belonged to the middle or lower social strata. A sample of 947 individuals was obtained from February to April 2011. Informed consent was acquired from those willing and eligible participants. The descriptive analysis used frequencies, percentages, means, standard deviation and chi-square. Quantitative information was processed using SPSS version 17. results: those from lower socioeconomic strata used antibiotics to treat symptoms of upper respiratory infections of their children without medical prescription in a higher percentage (35.57%) than middle socioeconomic strata (27.7%, p<0.01). Mothers who had university level education had more knowledge about measures to prevent antibiotic resistance (57.14%) than those with only a primary school education (13.59% p<0.05). conclusion: antibiotic use in children under five years old with symptoms of upper respiratory infection is high, mainly among those study participants corresponding to lower socioeconomic strata who mostly live in the rural area. MÉD.UIs. 2017;30(2):21-7.

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