Recent decades have seen considerable progress towards improved vaccine coverage. Rather than adhering to conventional vaccination education programs, it is important to draw lessons from other academic disciplines that can help to drive transformation and innovation. Therefore, it is vital that efforts and resources are directed towards an understanding of the immunosenescence process, the development of influenza vaccines and vaccine technologies that protect the elderly, funding of vaccine delivery for all elderly members of society, and development of a global recommendation for influenza vaccination, similar to what is done for other vaccines (e.g. tetanus and measles).
Cultural biases are a primary factor on attitudes to vaccination, and the history of anti-vaccinationists is as old as the history of vaccination itself. The claims and activities of anti-vaccinationists have adverse public health consequences. Those with an anti-vaccine stance may be people who lack a scientific grounding, have denialist or innumerate patterns of thinking, or have low-complexity cognitive styles. To counter the anti-vaccine movement it is imperative that we improve public education and persuasion through innovative, multidisciplinary efforts.
This presentation will review how people make decisions such as decisions regarding vaccines; and why they regularly make poor decisions. This will be followed by “lessons learned” in devising population-level vaccine recommendations and educational programs.