'Following Your Gut' or 'Questioning the Scientific Evidence': Understanding Vaccine Skepticism among More-Educated Dutch Parents
Dados Bibliográficos
| AUTOR(ES) | |
|---|---|
| AFILIAÇÃO(ÕES) | Senior Lecturer in Children and Youth Studies at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam in The Hague, Netherlands. Her current research interests include orphanhood and the international political economy of humanitarian responses to orphans, as well as youth sexual and reproductive health issues, primarily in eastern Africa. |
| ANO | 2021 |
| TIPO | Artigo |
| PERIÓDICO | Journal of Health and Social Behavior |
| ISSN | 0022-1465 |
| E-ISSN | 2150-6000 |
| EDITORA | JSTOR (United States) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022146520986118 |
| CITAÇÕES | 3 |
| ADICIONADO EM | 2025-08-18 |
Resumo
This study aims to understand vaccine skepticism among a population where it is remarkably prevalent—more-educated Dutch parents—through 31 in-depth interviews. Whereas all respondents ascribe a central role to the individual in obtaining knowledge (i.e., individualist epistemology), this is expressed in two repertoires. A neoromantic one focuses on deriving truth through intuition and following a 'natural' path and informs a risk typology: embracing (refusing) 'natural' ('unnatural') risks such as 'childhood diseases' ('pharmaceutical substances'). A critical-reflexive repertoire centers on scientific methods but is skeptical about the scientific consensus and informs a risk calculation: opting for the choice perceived to bear the smallest risk. Thus, the same vaccine can be rejected because of its perceived harm to natural processes (neoromantic repertoire) or because its scientific basis is deemed insufficient (critical-reflexive repertoire). Moreover, these opposing repertoires are likely to inspire different responses to the same health-related information.