Wellness communities and vaccine hesitancy

Bibliographic Data

ID5715328
AuthorsMichael S Daubs (0000-0003-0866-5018, Victoria University of Wellington, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume193
Issue1
Pages19-32
Publication date2024-11-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueMedia International Australia (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1329-878X • E-ISSN: 2200-467X
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1329878x241270526
OpenAlexW4401384581
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited27

This article articulates the intersection of wellness communities and anti-vaccine ('anti-vax') groups to demonstrate how vaccine misinformation and pseudoscience can propagate. This misinformation is often pushed by wellness influencers. One recent example is wellness figure Pete Evans, a celebrity chef and self-described 'qualified health coach'. By 2020, however, Evans had developed anti-vax views and began to promote fake COVID cures, anti-vax misinformation, and COVID conspiracy theories from QAnon. This contribution examines this overlap to demonstrate how wellness influencers spread misinformation that fuel vaccine hesitancy. Evans is just one example; journalists have reported on yoga teachers in California protesting against lockdowns and on wellness influencers claiming that a '"shadowy cabal" of scientists and companies' were responsible for COVID. These examples demonstrate how community intersections can amplify misinformation, pseudoscience and anti-vax views to a motivated and highly receptive audience

Advertising · Alternative medicine · Influencer marketing · Misinformation · Pandemic · Political science · Pseudoscience · Public relations · Social media · Sociology · Law · Medicine · Misinformation and Its Impacts · Psychology · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment · Vaccine Coverage and Hesitancy

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access