How Storytelling Can Combat Vaccine Hesitancy: a Transdisciplinary Approach

Abstract

The recent decline in vaccination rates across Europe has led to outbreaks of vaccine preventable diseases such as measles. Although there have always been persons opposed to vaccination, in recent years an increasing number of parents are losing confidence in or are being complacent about vaccinating their children. Given the accessibility of information on the internet, parents are actively and independently researching vaccines. They are exposed to negative claims about vaccines that appeal to their emotions and emotional stories tend make parents doubt vaccinations. By contrast, most positive vaccine messages focus on providing information through scientific data which has proven to be ineffective for some hesitant parents.Vaccine hesitancy can only be understood by looking at it from different perspectives and by exchanging knowledge between multiple fields of study. A transdisciplinary approach, in which individuals with different backgrounds search for solutions together, is necessary to be able to provide one or more solutions to the problem. Therefore, we spent eight months trying to solve part of this wicked <target target-type="page-num" id="p-93"/>problem from a transdisciplinary perspective. Based on literature reviews of different topics within vaccine hesitancy, interviews with hesitant parents, interactions with various stakeholders within and outside academia, and analyses of popular views on social media concerning vaccines, we question the effectiveness of the current pro-vaccine approaches. We also suggest adopting ‘storytelling’ that incorporates scientific data to inform parents and we argue that narratives are intrinsically persuasive as they are easier to understand and could prove more effective than traditional scientific communication. We expect that this strategy will contribute to the increase in and maintenance of high vaccination coverage rates and stop the circulation and outbreak of vaccine preventable diseases.

Human Papillomavirus Vaccination and Social Media: Results in a Trial With Mothers of Daughters Aged 14–17

“…But, for many hesitant or resistant mothers, simply providing more information or fact-checking misinformation may not be sufficient. Additional strategies, such as counter-narratives, peer correction, factual elaboration, coherence/credibility appeals, and developing media and e-Health literacy skills (45,(65)(66)(67)(68)(69)(70)(71), may be needed to dispel the concerns about lack of efficacy, safety and harmful sideeffects, and mistrust of organizations and agencies promoting HPV vaccines. These same vaccine-critical comments about safety and efficacy have been documented in other studies of social media content on HPV vaccines (72)(73)(74)(75)(76)(77)(78)(79) and seem to have resonated with some mothers.…”

Animated, video entertainment-education to improve vaccine confidence globally during the COVID-19 pandemic: an online randomized controlled experiment with 24,000 participants

“…Many existing interventions have focused on providing information in the form of scientific data, using a didactic approach. This strategy has proven ineffective for key target audiences [ 4 ].…”

“…Negative claims about vaccines often appeal to the emotions of the target audiences, eliciting vaccine doubt and hesitancy. This observation—that emotion-focused messages resonate and affect health behaviors [ 4 , 5 ]—can also potentially be used to the advantage of health communicators. Research suggests that activating positive emotions, like hope and altruism, can actually bolster vaccine education interventions [ 5 ].…”

“…Other promising pedagogical strategies, including the use of instructional humor [ 6 ], analogies [ 7 , 8 ], and storytelling, could also be leveraged to promote vaccine confidence, and researchers have advocated for a transdisciplinary approach to successful health communication on vaccines [ 4 ]. By integrating different fields of expertise, including those outside of academia—like entertainment and marketing—we may be able to design more effective vaccine promotion interventions.…”

Promoting Social Distancing and COVID-19 Vaccine Intentions to Mothers: Randomized Comparison of Information Sources in Social Media Messages

“…Lower uptake of vaccines in general and lower COVID-19 vaccine intentions have been related to misinformation, unwarranted safety concerns, and conspiracies on social media, as has the practice of NPIs [29,30]. Thus, efforts are needed to promote COVID-19 prevention measures and correct misinformation on social media through fact checking and corrections, counternarratives, peer correction, coherence/credibility appeals, and digital and media literacy [31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38].…”