← Quick Find
Menü
Vaccinations are perceived as being riskier than the diseases themselves
People often have a distorted perception of the risk that they or others face from a disease. Specifically, people may perceive that the risk from a disease is low or inconsequential. This can motivate their belief that they don’t need a vaccine or that the drawbacks outweigh the benefits of vaccination. A misperception of disease risk has been found to be related to hesitant attitudes towards vaccination.
One of the reasons that people underestimate the risk from diseases is that vaccines have been so successful. It’s easy to misperceive that the risk from a preventable disease is low when few people, if any, suffer from that disease.
This theme frames the decision not to vaccinate as a calculated decision. However, the calculation is based on a distorted perception of:
The disadvantages of vaccines are inflated and the benefits diminished, so that the cost-benefit analysis is skewed. People may also claim that their distorted perceptions are true and others are distorting the risks.
Since most people do not have regular contact with vaccine-preventable diseases, they may not fear these diseases. In countries like the UK, vaccines have had great success in lowering the incidence of some diseases that were highly threatening several decades ago, like measles. Under these conditions, the small risks of vaccination can seem more threatening, since they appear more certain than the risk of diseases that one does not have direct experience with.
Dialogue between patients and healthcare professionals is most productive if it is guided by empathy, and an opportunity for the patient to affirm the reasons underlying their attitudes and to express understanding for that. That’s why it is important to understand the attitude roots behind people’s overt opinions. To affirm a person’s underlying attitude root does not mean we need to agree with the specifics of their argument. For example, we can acknowledge that:
Since most people do not have regular contact with vaccine-preventable diseases, they may not fear these diseases. In countries like the UK, vaccines have had great success in lowering the incidence of some diseases that were highly threatening several decades ago, like measles. Under these conditions, the small risks of vaccination can seem more threatening, since they appear more certain than the risk of diseases that one does not have direct experience with.
A vaccine protects you against diseases and severe illness. In the worst case, disease can have fatal consequences and can lead to disability and death.
Vaccine recommendations in different countries are tailored to what the risk of disease is for that country. For example, the measles vaccine is recommended worldwide because the disease is very risky to everyone. Prior to the introduction of a vaccine, as recently as 1980, measles caused more than 2.6 million deaths globally. But the malaria vaccine would only be recommended for certain countries where the disease is a threat.
English 
French 
Spanish 
German 
Romanian