X Close

‘Health Chatter’: Research Department of Behavioural Science and Health Blog

Home

Menu

The importance of vaccination for everyone

By rmjdafo, on 19 August 2016

It’s important that most people get vaccines

Most people get the vaccines offered to them as part of the NHS immunisation programme. They help prevent, and reduce the spread of diseases. Because of vaccines we no longer have smallpox anywhere in the world and polio is almost wiped out too.

For some vaccines, fewer people from some ethnic minority backgrounds get them compared to everyone else in the UK. For example, children from Nigerian, White Polish or Somali backgrounds are less likely than other groups to be vaccinated against Diphtheria in London (1). For other vaccines, more people from some ethnic minority backgrounds get them compared to everyone else. For example, one study found that children from Black and Asian backgrounds living in the London borough of Brent had higher uptake of the first dose of the MMR vaccine than children from White backgrounds (2).

Because of the way vaccination works, it’s really important that most people get the vaccines they are offered. If enough people get vaccines, protection is given to the people who cannot get them for medical reasons or are too young. So although the vast majority of people get vaccines, it’s still useful to understand why some people do not, so we can work out how we might be able to increase the number of people who get them. Because of the differences in who is and is not getting vaccines, we decided to explore what it was that might make children from ethnic minority backgrounds more or less likely to get vaccines.

What did we do?

In our new review, we looked at published studies where parents from ethnic minority backgrounds have been spoken to about why they had or had not chosen to vaccinate their children. We just looked a studies that had used qualitative methods, like interviewing parents and speaking to small groups of parents all at once (called focus groups). We used a technique called Thematic Synthesis to bring all of the findings together, which involves a number of researchers labelling the things that people had said and finding common themes within these labels.

What did we find?

Not surprisingly we found that most of the things that had convinced parents from ethnic minority backgrounds to get vaccines for their children, or had stopped them from doing so, were the same as the things that parents in general tell us. For example, parents had said that they were happy to go along with the doctor’s recommendation; that their decision had been influenced by other people and had found that things like transport problems had stopped them getting vaccines.

But there were also some things that had affected parents’ decisions about vaccines that were linked to ethnicity. For some parents, their religion instructed them about whether vaccines were needed for their children. Other parents were influenced by their experiences of having lived in other countries. For some, this made them appreciate the healthcare that is offered in the UK, but others felt that particular vaccines were not needed because they were not offered to them back home. Scare stories in newspapers or on the television can sometimes cause parents to worry about vaccines. We found that some parents who did not speak English had not heard these stories and so did not have the worries that other parents might. Some parents had wanted information about vaccines to be given to them in the language they speak at home. Finally, vaccines go through many years of testing and are studied in groups of people from all different ethnic backgrounds. Some parents said that they wanted to know about this testing, so that they could be reassured that their children would react to the vaccines in the same way as other children.

We now have a better understanding of why some people do and do not get vaccines

This research has helped us to understand why children from some ethnic minority backgrounds might be more likely to get some vaccines. It also told us the type of information that parents from ethnic minority backgrounds want to know about vaccines to be confident that giving their child a vaccine is the right thing. In some situations it might be a good idea to tailor information about vaccines to parents from particular ethnic minority backgrounds to make sure they are getting all the information they want to have.

 

References

  1. Wagner KS, van Wijgerden JCJ, Andrews N, Goulden K, White JM: Childhood vaccination coverage by ethnicity within London between 2006/2007 and 2010/2011. Arch Dis Child 2014, 99(4):348-353. DOI: 10.1136/archdischild-2013-304388
  2. Mixer RE, Jamrozik K, Newsom D: Ethnicity as a correlate of the uptake of the first dose of mumps, measles and rubella vaccine. J Epidemiol Community Health 2007, 61(9):797-801. DOI: 10.1136/jech.2005.045633

The HPV Vaccination: What’s preventing girls from being vaccinated?

By rmjdlro, on 18 March 2015

The number of girls receiving the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination is at an all-time high, according to a new report published this month by Public Health England; In the six years since the vaccine became routinely available over 2.3 million girls have received it, and in the last three years over 86% of girls offered the vaccine have received it.

Despite these figures, previous research has shown that girls from Black and Asian ethnic minority backgrounds are far less likely to receive the vaccination than their White British counterparts.

To find out why this might be happening, the EMPATHIC study has been set up; EMPATHIC is an interview study which aims to investigate parents’ opinions and experiences of HPV vaccination. The intention is to work out from these interviews what additional information or resources parents need to help them make an informed decision about the vaccination.

What is HPV and why is the vaccination important?

HPV is a common virus that affects the skin and moist areas that line the body (e.g. the mouth, vagina, anus) and is spread by skin to skin contact, including sexual contact. Around 8 out of 10 people will be infected with HPV at some point in their life but in most people the virus goes away on its own and doesn’t cause any symptoms. However, for some people the virus can cause cell changes which can increase the risk of some cancers.

There are over 100 different types of HPV. Around 13 types can cause cancer and two types in particular (type 16 & 18) have been shown to cause most cases of cervical cancer (around 70% of cases). HPV is spread to the cervix through sexual contact and most infections are symptomless, so it is not obvious if someone carries the virus. Girls in the UK are offered vaccination against HPV to protect against these two types that cause cervical cancer.

Girls are offered the HPV vaccination when they are in year 8 at school. It is offered to girls at this age because the vaccine is most effective if it is given before girls become sexually active. If their parents provide consent for them to have the vaccination they will have two injections spaced six months apart. The vaccination could prevent over 70% of cervical cancers. It’s therefore important for all girls to have the opportunity to get the vaccination.

What does the EMPATHIC study involve?

We are planning to conduct individual interviews with the parents of girls (who are in years 9 to 11 at school) from various backgrounds whose daughters have and haven’t had the HPV vaccine.

We are working with schools and community groups in London who are helping us to contact parents that might want to be involved. We are also happy to for parents to get in touch with us if they think they might be right for the study.

The interviews will last around 30 to 60 minutes. Parents will be asked to discuss their thoughts about the HPV vaccination and past experience of vaccination.

What will happen after the interviews?

After we’ve done all of the interviews (we’re aiming for 30 to 60) we will analyse the information and interpret the findings, which will hopefully result in some suggestions about what information or resources are needed to help parents make an informed decision about their daughter having the HPV vaccination.

The next step will be to design some type of intervention based on what we find. This could be an information leaflet, text message reminders, or meetings held at the school, we don’t know yet; our decision will be based on our findings. Whatever intervention we develop will be tried out and we will evaluate how useful it is, to see whether it is something that could be used on a wider scale to help more parents make decisions about the vaccination.

Get in touch!

We’d like to hear your thoughts on the study. If you have any comments or are just interested in learning more, please contact Dr Alice Forster on 0203 108 3293 or at alice.forster@ucl.ac.uk.

Article Reference: Public Health England (2015) Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Vaccine Coverage in England 2008/09 to 2013/14 (Report no. 2014797). London: Public Health England.