Open AccessVaccine Hesitancy, Acceptance, and Anti-Vaccination: Trends and Future Prospects for Public Health
Author(s) -
Ève Dubé,
Jeremy K. Ward,
Pierre Verger,
i E. MacDonald
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
annual review of public health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.239
H-Index - 144
eISSN - 1545-2093
pISSN - 0163-7525
DOI - 10.1146/annurev-publhealth-090419-102240
Subject(s) - vaccination , public health , terminology , resistance (ecology) , public opinion , public relations , global health , medicine , environmental health , political science , immunology , politics , biology , nursing , ecology , linguistics , philosophy , law
An often-stated public health comment is that “vaccination is a victim of its own success.” While the scientific and medical consensus on the benefits of vaccination is clear and unambiguous, an increasing number of people are perceiving vaccines as unsafe and unnecessary. The World Health Organization identified “the reluctance or refusal to vaccinate despite availability of vaccines” as one of the 10 threats to global health in 2019. The negative influence of anti-vaccination movements is often named as a cause of increasing vaccine resistance in the public. In this review, we give an overview of the current literature on the topic, beginning by agreeing on terminology and concepts before looking at potential causes, consequences, and impacts of resistance to vaccination.