A systematic review of interventions for reducing parental vaccine refusal and vaccine hesitancy

• Published in: Vaccine Vol. 31; no. 40; pp. 4293 - 4304
• Main Authors: Sadaf, Alina, Richards, Jennifer L., Glanz, Jason, Salmon, Daniel A., Omer, Saad B.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kidlington Elsevier Ltd 13.09.2013; Elsevier; Elsevier Limited
• Subjects: Adolescence; adolescents; Allergy and Immunology; Applied microbiology; Attitudes; Biological and medical sciences; childhood; Children & youth; Confidence intervals; Decision making; Disease; Education; experts; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; Health risks; Human papillomavirus; Humans; Immunization; Intervention; Medical Subject Headings-MeSH; Microbiology; Mortality; Parents; Parents & parenting; Parents - psychology; Public health; Sampling techniques; Studies; systematic review; Tax exemptions; Treatment Refusal - psychology; Vaccination - legislation & jurisprudence; Vaccination - psychology; Vaccine hesitancy; Vaccine refusal; Vaccines; Vaccines, antisera, therapeutical immunoglobulins and monoclonal antibodies (general aspects); World Health Organization; Vaccine hesitancy; Vaccine refusal; Parents; Vaccine; Review; Taxonomy
• ISSN: 0264-410X; 1873-2518; 1873-2518
• DOI: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2013.07.013

•Unvaccinated individuals put communities at risk of disease.•Parental vaccine refusal and hesitance is an emerging issue.•We conducted a systematic review for interventions to reduce refusal/hesitance.•We found limited evidence on effective strategies to guide policy makers.•There is a need for appropriately designed, executed and evaluated intervention studies. Unvaccinated individuals pose a public health threat to communities. Research has identified many factors associated with parental vaccine refusal and hesitancy toward childhood and adolescent immunizations. However, data on the effectiveness of interventions to address parental refusal are limited. We conducted a systematic review of four online databases to identify interventional studies. We used criteria recommended by the WHO's Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on immunization (SAGE) for the quality assessment of studies. Intervention categories and outcomes were evaluated for each body of evidence and confidence in overall estimates of effect was determined. There is limited evidence to guide implementation of effective strategies to deal with the emerging threat of parental vaccine refusal. There is a need for appropriately designed, executed and evaluated intervention studies to address this gap in knowledge.