Season 17, Episode 67: Why Are People Anti-Vaccine and What Can We Do About It?

Hey StarTalkians! Episode 67 of season 17 was a “cosmic queries” edition, with Neil sitting down with co-host Jordan Klepper to go through some fan questions. This episode’s questions often touched on conspiracies, anti-science attitudes and cognitive biases, with a notable question about anti-vaccine views at the end:

Cosmic Queries – Curiosity, Conspiracies & the God Particle with Jordan Klepper - StarTalk Radio

(1:06:30)

Neil’s documentary sounds interesting, but what about the actual question? Here’s what I found out.

Why Do People Become Anti-Vaccine? The Surface Level Answer

More general research looking at the issue identifies some key factors linked to anti-vaccine views. Notably, these include:

• Concerns about the safety of vaccines and/or side effects

• Lack of trust in the government and healthcare professionals

• Conspiracy beliefs

• A lack of knowledge of vaccines

There were others, including emotions – which will be discussed below – but these were generally either COVID-specific or overlapped with the above.

Why It’s Important to Go Deeper

As one of the most informative papers I found points out, “surface beliefs” are really only part of the picture. If we could address concerns about side effects with data, the problem would already be solved. But the issue is actually related to attitude roots, like anxieties, personal identity and ideology.

The Psychology of Vaccine Hesitancy

One systematic review and one study tackle the deeper reasons underpinning anti-vaccine views. While the data on emotions is mixed, many studies suggest that more feelings of depression and anxiety are linked to vaccine hesitancy. Both papers also point to fears and disgust around needles and blood as being factors that drive resistance to vaccines.

The systematic review also identified cognitive inflexibility as a key factor, since it can lead to confirmation bias – something else they covered on the episode. These views can also be an aspect of personal identity, an almost defiant expression of individualism.

What Can We Do About It?

The most important factor is addressing the root cause for the specific individual. For example, disgust around needles and blood is understandable, but it’s better to focus on the downsides of the disease (for example, multiple blood draws for test, or IVs) than to dismiss these concerns. Another suggestion [5] is that instead of mocking conspiracies, it may be more useful to turn it around: there is a risk of conspiracies, but these may exist to hide the benefits of vaccines too.