Strategies intended to address vaccine hesitancy: overview of reviews (search up to November 2014)
Citation: Dubé E, Gagnon D, MacDonald NE. Strategies intended to address vaccine hesitancy: Review of published reviews. Vaccine. 2015;33(34):4191-203.
Language: Abstract available in EN. Full text available in EN.
Free to view: Yes.
Funding source: Nothing noted specific to this review.
What is this? Multiple vaccines are available for COVID-19 but vaccine hesitancy is proving to be a challenge in some settings. Existing research on vaccine hesitancy might provide useful information for policy makers planning and implementing vaccination programmes for COVID-19 and other infectious diseases.
In this review, the authors searched for reviews of interventions intended to reduce vaccine hesitancy or enhance vaccine acceptance. They restricted their searches to articles published in English between January 2008 and November 2014 and excluded reviews that focused exclusively on strategies to increase influenza vaccine uptake. They included 15 reviews.
What was found: Interventions in the included reviews involved population-based initiatives (e.g. community-based interventions; incentive and rewards; reminders and recalls for vaccination; reminders based on school, college and child care centre requirements); face to face and educational interventions; national immunization initiatives; and social media interventions.
At the time of this review, the authors found no strong evidence to recommend a specific intervention to address vaccine hesitancy or refusal.
Implications: The authors of this review suggested that when vaccine hesitancy interventions are implemented, a rigorous evaluation of their impact on vaccine hesitancy and vaccine acceptance should be included.
Other considerations: The authors of the review discussed their findings in the context of place of residence.
This summary was prepared by Stephanie Sampson, edited by Sydney Johnson and finalized by Mike Clarke.
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