Beliefs around childhood vaccines in the United States: A systematic review

Ren

2020

IJERPH

Text analysis has been used by scholars to research attitudes toward vaccination and is particularly timely due to the rise of medical misinformation via social media. This study uses a sample of 9581 vaccine-related tweets in the period 1 January 2019 to 5 April 2019. The time period is of the essence because during this time, a measles outbreak was prevalent throughout the United States and a public debate was raging. Sentiment analysis is applied to the sample, clustering the data into topics using the term frequency–inverse document frequency (TF-IDF) technique. The analyses suggest that most (about 77%) of the tweets focused on the search for new/better vaccines for diseases such as the Ebola virus, human papillomavirus (HPV), and the flu. Of the remainder, about half concerned the recent measles outbreak in the United States, and about half were part of ongoing debates between supporters and opponents of vaccination against measles in particular. While these numbers currently suggest a relatively small role for vaccine misinformation, the concept of herd immunity puts that role in context. Nevertheless, going forward, health experts should consider the potential for the increasing spread of falsehoods that may get firmly entrenched in the public mind.

Section: Sentiments Towards Vaccinationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Sentiments Towards Vaccinationmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Studying Public Perception about Vaccination: A Sentiment Analysis of Tweets

Ren

2020

IJERPH

“…Other barriers appear unique to the HPV vaccine, which prevents cancer-causing sexually transmitted infections. Notably, a number of studies have revealed parental [7,8] and physician [9,10] anxieties about associations between the HPV vaccine and sexual behavior, which are not supported by evidence [11].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

No association between HPV vaccination and infertility in U.S. females 18–33 years old

Schmuhl

Mooney

Xiao

et al. 2020

Vaccine

Background-Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines have been recommended as primary prevention of HPV-related cancers for over 10 years in the United States, and evidence reveals decreased incidence of HPV infections following vaccination. However, concerns have been raised that HPV vaccines could decrease fertility. This study examined the relationship between HPV immunization and self-reported infertility in a nationally representative sample. Methods-Data from the 2013-2016 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey were analyzed to asses likelihood of self-reported infertility among women aged 20 to 33, who were young enough to have been offered HPV vaccines and old enough to have been queried about infertility (n=1,114). Two logistic regression models, stratified by marital history, examined potential associations between HPV vaccination and infertility. Model 1 assessed the likelihood of infertility among women who had never been pregnant or whose pregnancies occurred prior to HPV vaccination. Model 2 accounted for the possibility of latent and/or non-permanent postvaccine infertility by including all women 20-33 years old who reported any 12-month period of infertility.

“…In addition, cultural beliefs and religious barriers based on pre-marital sexual relations bans may also contribute to vaccine hesitancy among some specific sub-populations that may harbor negative views regarding the topic of preventing sexually transmitted infections [12]. Finally, the debunked myths and misconceptions regarding a link between vaccination and childhood autism and other pediatric pathologies may still be pervasive among a significant proportion of the population [13,14].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Vaccine Knowledge, Awareness and Acceptance among Dental Students and Post-Graduate Dental Residents

Mann

Kingsley

2020

Dentistry Journal

Introduction: The recent development of a vaccine that is highly effective against the human papillomavirus (HPV) has been met with widespread clinical and public health professional acceptance. However, social and societal barriers to vaccination may hamper public health efforts to prevent HPV-mediated diseases. Although a few studies have evaluated knowledge or awareness of HPV vaccination among dentists or dental educators, few studies have evaluated the acceptance, knowledge and awareness of HPV vaccination among dental students and post-graduate dental residents. The primary goal of this study is to evaluate survey responses regarding acceptance, knowledge and awareness of HPV vaccination among dental students and post-graduate dental residents. Methods: This study was a retrospective analysis of a previously administered and collected questionnaire. The original protocol was reviewed by the UNLV Biomedical Institutional Research Board (IRB) and was deemed excluded from IRB review (OPRS#0811-2911). Results: Two hundred and ninety-three (N = 293) dental student and forty-one (N = 41) post-graduate dental resident questionnaires were available for a total sample size of N = 334. In brief, although the majority of dental students and residents agreed that vaccines are safe and effective, less than half of dental students (37.5%) or dental residents (48.7%) had discussed the HPV vaccine with a physician or had received the vaccine themselves. In addition, a significant percentage of dental students and residents felt they did not have enough information regarding the HPV vaccine (25.6% and 26.8%, respectively) or had significant concerns about the side effects (17.1%). Conclusions: The data suggest more specific information in dental school microbiology and immunology courses might be needed to increase awareness and knowledge of the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, including the HPV vaccine. This enhanced education might also serve as a curricular focal point to answer questions regarding vaccine-related side effects and provide a mechanism for answering important questions regarding this vaccine.