Addressing anti-vax beliefs or hesitancy means listening first, then meeting someone where they are.
Rev. Terris King is a Black pastor in Baltimore who is also a former director of the Office of Minority Health at the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services. He said his experiences in public health have taught him that many institutions take a paternalistic approach toward Black communities: an attitude that “‘We are here to take care of you, and we are here to empower you,’ as if those communities don’t have power,” King said.
Researchers, laboratory experts and vaccine promoters need to first ask communities, “‘What are your needs from the health care perspective?’ And at least listen and attempt to address those needs and to be transparent and honest about the environment that we find ourselves in,” he added.Emily K. Brunson is an associate professor of anthropology at Texas State University and one of the co-chairs of the working group that produced the John Hopkins report on preparing populations for a COVID-19 vaccine. She hashow social networks play an important role in parents’ decisions about vaccinating their children. “Those personal connections actually mattered more than official statements that people might read or what social media might be from people that they don’t know. It really comes down to who people know and what those very trusted people are saying,” Brunson said. “COVID is a different situation, obviously, than parental vaccination, but I suspect the same will hold true ― that social networks, those local one-on-one connections, will matter a lot.” One way to reach a vaccine skeptic you know on a one-on-one level is by fostering empathy. Catherine Sanderson, a psychology professor at Amherst College and the author of “,” said one strategy for changing social norms is to build empathy by communicating what is personally at stake for you with a vaccine. Sanderson said this could sound like, “Listen, my mother actually is at very high-risk [for this disease]. You may not know that, but it makes me really sad when you say that. My mother’s life may be at risk.” If you do see vaccine misinformation spreading on social media, you can report it to the individual platform, or have nonprofit public health initiatives like Public Health Projects’ Stronger campaignSanderson said one question to ask yourself before you engage with a vaccine skeptic is “Are you trying to change that person’s view or the other audience members’?” Sometimes your best option is the latter, and calling out vaccine misinformation one person shares may stop it from spreading. By speaking up, you send a message to everyone listening that “Not everyone thinks vaccines are fake. I should probably be careful before speaking in that same way,” Sanderson said.for how health authorities can address vaccine deniers in public, the World Health Organization said the goal of engaging is to correct the content and unmask the common weapons that vocal vaccine deniers use, such as fake experts, conspiracies, the misrepresentation and selectivity of facts, and impossible expectations. If the vaccine denier is using fake experts, for example, WHO tells health officials to point that out by noting that an argument is based on ideas put forward by people “who are not considered experts in the field of vaccine safety and effectiveness” and that their ideas “do not reflect the evidence-based consensus among scientists, nor are they representative of public opinion.” You could also say the majority of Americans are “well aware of the huge benefits of vaccinations for the health of every individual,” according to WHO.
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