Parents’ vaccination comprehension and decisions
Open accessAbstract
We report on 30 in-depth mental models interviews with parents discussing vaccination for their children, both in general terms and in response to communications drawn from sources supporting and opposing vaccines. We found that even parents favourable to vaccination can be confused by the ongoing debate, leading them to question their choices. Many parents lack basic knowledge of how vaccines work, and do not find the standard information provided to them to be particularly helpful in explaining it. Those with the greatest need to know about vaccination seem most vulnerable to confusing information. Opportunities for education may be missed if paediatricians do not appreciate parents' specific information needs.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Parents who are faced with the decision to have their children vaccinated may be more likely to seek information about vaccines via the Internet than through their doctor.
“In particular, parents who are faced with the decision to have their children vaccinated may be more likely to seek information about vaccines via the Internet than through their doctor [18].”
From The Effects of Anti-Vaccine Conspiracy Theories on Vaccination Intentions (2014) · cites this paper as [18]
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 79 · Cited by 245
- Authors
- Downs, J. S., de Bruin, W. B., & Fischhoff, B.
- Affiliations
- Carnegie Mellon University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Downs, Julie S.
- Venue
- Vaccine
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2008-03
- Volume
- 26
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- 1595-1607
- ISSN
- 0264-410X (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2117186187
- Cited by
- 245
- References
- 79
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 14 · 2020: 17 · 2019: 43 · 2018: 17 · 2017: 22 · 2016: 12 · 2015: 15 · 2014: 14 · 2013: 16 · 2012: 14
- FWCI
- 8.44
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- figshare.com
- Licence
- Locations
- Vaccine (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- KiltHub Repository (submittedVersion)
- White Rose Research Online (University of Leeds, The University of Sheffield, University of York) (submittedVersion)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- KiltHub Repository
- Funders
- National Science Foundation
- Oak Ridge Associated Universities
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (DE-RP05-00OR22750)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Health › Vaccine Coverage and Hesitancy
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Patient-Provider Communication in Healthcare
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Health Literacy and Information Accessibility
- Keywords
- childhood immunization, parental decision-making, vaccine hesitancy, vaccine knowledge, mental models, vaccine information sources, vaccine education, pediatricians, information needs, vaccine safety communication
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Communication, Decision Making, Humans, Interview, Psychological, Models, Psychological, Parents, Vaccination, Risk Assessment, Internet
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
