The effect of trust and proximity on vaccine propensity

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 14; no. 8; p. e0220658
• Main Authors: Justwan, Florian, Baumgaertner, Bert, Carlisle, Juliet E., Carson, Emma, Kizer, Jordan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 28.08.2019; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Attitudes; Biology and Life Sciences; Decision Making; Dependent variables; Disease Outbreaks - prevention & control; Earth Sciences; Epidemics; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; Humans; Immunization; Measles; Medicine and Health Sciences; Outbreaks; People and Places; Perceptions; Proximity; Public opinion; Research and Analysis Methods; Social Sciences; Trust; Vaccination; Vaccination - psychology; Vaccines; Vaccines - therapeutic use; United States; United States > US; Idaho; California
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0220658

The main goal of this paper is to study the effects of (1) trust in government medical experts and (2) proximity to a recent disease outbreak on vaccine propensity. More specifically, we explore how these variables affect attitudes with regards to measles. Using original survey data, collected in January/February 2017, we obtain three main empirical findings. First, contrary to our expectations, an individual's proximity to a recent measles outbreak has no independent effect on vaccination attitudes. Second, corroborating previous studies in the field, we find that trust in institutions such as the CDC has a positive effect on our dependent variable. Third, there is a significant interactive relationship between proximity and trust in governmental medical experts. While distance from a previous measles outbreak has no effect on vaccination attitudes for respondents with medium or high levels of trust, the variable exerts a negative effect for subjects with little confidence in government medical experts. In other words: low-trust individuals who live farther away from a recent measles outbreak harbor less favorable views about vaccination for this particular disease than low-trust respondents who live close to an affected area. This implies that citizens who are skeptical of the CDC and similar institutions base their vaccination decision-making to some degree on whether or not a given disease occurs in close vicinity to their community.