Vaccination Research Group

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https://hdl.handle.net/10919/79918
The mission of the Vaccination Research Group was to pioneer research on vaccination controversy and infectious disease in the humanities and social sciences. An interdisciplinary team composed of faculty, graduate and undergraduate researchers, the VRG had several goals, including providing frameworks for understanding the social and cultural contexts of vaccination controversy and introducing undergraduate and graduate researchers to team-based, collaborative research in these fields.

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Browsing Vaccination Research Group by Author "Hausman, Bernice L."

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    Cumberland Plateau Health District 2009-2010 Flu Season Vaccine Study: Final Report
    Marmagas, Susan West; Dannenberg, Clare; Hausman, Bernice L.; Anthony, Elizabeth; Boyer, Stacy Bingham; Fortenberry, Lauren; Lawrence, Heidi (Virginia Tech, 2011-08-31)
    The Cumberland Plateau Health District of the Virginia Department of Health commissioned a team of faculty at Virginia Tech in 2011 to conduct a small pilot study of seasonal flu and H1N1 vaccination practices in Far Southwest Virginia. The study was conducted between February and July 2011. The purpose of the study was two-fold: Understand the reasons why two specific populations (parents of elementary school-aged children and 18-25 year olds) chose to vaccinate or not vaccinate for H1N1 and seasonal flu in 2009-10, and Identify the contributing factors (e.g. logistical barriers, intentional reasons, or parental disengagement) that led to a decision to either vaccinate or not vaccinate. The study was conducted in a small rural county with a significant portion of the population living below the poverty line. The area ranks low in Virginia for health outcomes with more than one quarter of residents reporting to be in poor or fair health in nationally tracked county health statistics. The study had three components: a survey of 86 family units in two elementary schools, indepth in-person follow-up interviews with nine families, and a survey of 158 18-25 year-olds in two educational institutions in the region.
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    ‘Poisonous, Filthy, Loathsome, Damnable Stuff’: The Rhetorical Ecology of Vaccination Concern
    Hausman, Bernice L.; Ghebremichael, Mecal; Hayek, Philip; Mack, Erin (Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, 2014)
    In this article, we analyze newspaper articles and advertisements mentioning vaccination from 1915 to 1922 and refer to historical studies of vaccination practices and attitudes in the early 20th century in order to assess historical continuities and discontinuities in vaccination concern. In the Progressive Era period, there were a number of themes or features that resonated with contemporary issues and circumstances: 1) fears of vaccine contamination; 2) distrust of medical professionals; 3) resistance to compulsory vaccination; and 4) the local nature of vaccination concern. Such observations help scholars and practitioners understand vaccine skepticism as longstanding, locally situated, and linked to the sociocultural contexts in which vaccination occurs and is mandated for particular segments of the population. A rhetorical approach offers a way to understand how discourses are engaged and mobilized for particular purposes in historical contexts. Historically situating vaccine hesitancy and addressing its articulation with a particular rhetorical ecology offers scholars and practitioners a robust understanding of vaccination concerns that can, and should, influence current approaches to vaccination skepticism.
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    Urban Legends and the Flu: A Survey of College Students’ Perceptions
    Hausman, Bernice L.; Lawrence, Heidi; Casady, Megan; Fuller, Jessica; Shelley, Leanne; Wallen, Andria (Virginia Tech, 2012)
    Formally educated parents seem to be at the core of anti-vaccination movements. Since college and graduate students are young adults who will become the next generation of educated parents, our aim was to identify vaccination sentiments in this age group. This research could help elucidate vaccination practices and beliefs of parents in the future.
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    Vaccination Persuasion Online: A Qualitative Study of two Provaccine and two Vaccine Skeptical Websites
    Grant, Leonard Francis III; Hausman, Bernice L.; Cashion, Margaret; Lucchesi, Nicholas; Patel, Kelsey; Roberts, Jonathan (Journal of Medical Internet Research, 2015)
    Current concerns about vaccination resistance often cite the Internet as a source of vaccine controversy. Most academic studies of vaccine resistance online use quantitative methods to describe misinformation on vaccine-skeptical websites. Findings from these studies are useful for categorizing the generic features of these websites, but they do not provide insights into why these websites successfully persuade their viewers. To date, there have been few attempts to understand, qualitatively, the persuasive features of provaccine or vaccine-skeptical websites. The purpose of this research was to examine the persuasive features of provaccine and vaccine-skeptical websites. The qualitative analysis was conducted to generate hypotheses concerning what features of these websites are persuasive to people seeking information about vaccination and vaccine-related practices.