Researchers across the world, including Halifax, are working hard to find a vaccine against the virus that causes COVID-19.
But we don’t know how many Canadians will actually get the vaccine if and when they’re successful.
“I’m a parent and I know that I’ve been thinking about what kinds of decisions that I will make for my family should a vaccine be developed,” said Christine Lackner, a developmental psychologist at Mount Saint Vincent University.
“We know that there’s going to be a variety of different opinions out there. People are free to choose their own health care, to make their own health-care decisions, but not everybody is going to make the same decisions so are there certain factors that might predict the likelihood that individuals are going to be vaccinated?”
Lackner has launched a national survey to get some answers on those questions. She’ll zero in on demographic factors such as age, socio-economic status and family composition.
“We’re looking at past vaccination history as well,” Lackner said in a phone interview Thursday.
“So are you going to be making the same kinds of decisions about potential coronavirus vaccine as you have made about having your kids vaccinated against MMR, measles mumps and rubella, which has been the more controversial vaccine over the past number of years.”
Lackner noted that a big spark in the antivaxxer movement was a discredited study that the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine was linked to autism.
“We know that data was fraudulent and Dr. Andrew Wakefield who was the one who got that started had his medical licence revoked but the myth still sort of persists,” said Lackner, who also specializes in neurodevelopmental disabilities such as autism.
One factor that might affect any vaccine hesitancy when it comes to COVID-19 is something called psychological distance, she said. The ongoing catastrophic consequences of the coronavirus are psychologically close to virtually everyone in the world, whereas few people today have experienced MMR conditions.
“So if an issue feels psychologically close to you, like the coronavirus, which we’ve seen in action, are you more likely to take action on that thing that feels more close to you or not?”
The number of people who get vaccinated against a particular virus can be crucial in stemming outbreaks. Lachner said the usual proportion of "herd immunity" needed is about 80 per cent. It’s not clear whether that applies to the coronavirus given the uncertainty that persists around issues such as asymptomatic transmission and the possibility of recurrence in people who’ve already had COVID-19.
Lackner hopes to get about 500 responses from Canadian families to her survey, which can be most easily accessed by Googling MSVU ELM Lab Facebook.
She hopes to have the peer-reviewed study results published by the end of summer in an open-access journal. Besides raising awareness of these issues for the layperson, she said the knowledge of vaccination-tendency attitudes can help inform public health policies and programs.
“As far as I know there’s not been any research on this at this point so (I want to know) what are Canadian families thinking about right now and are there any factors that are predicting their likelihood to vaccinate their kids.”
