Nudging immunity: the case for vaccinating children in school and day care by default

Many parents are hesitant about, or face motivational barriers to, vaccinating their children. In this paper we propose a type of vaccination policy that could be implemented either in addition to coercive vaccination or as an alternative to it in order to increase paediatric vaccination uptake in a...

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Auteurs principaux: Giubilini, A, Caviola, L, Maslen, H, al., E
Format: Journal article
Publié: Springer Verlag 2019
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author Giubilini, A
Caviola, L
Maslen, H
al., E
author_facet Giubilini, A
Caviola, L
Maslen, H
al., E
author_sort Giubilini, A
collection OXFORD
description Many parents are hesitant about, or face motivational barriers to, vaccinating their children. In this paper we propose a type of vaccination policy that could be implemented either in addition to coercive vaccination or as an alternative to it in order to increase paediatric vaccination uptake in a non-coercive way. We propose the use of vaccination nudges that exploit the very same decision biases that often undermine vaccination uptake. In particular, we propose a policy under which children would be vaccinated at school or day-care by default, without requiring parental authorization, but with parents retaining the right to opt their children out of vaccination. We show that such a policy is 1) likely to be effective, at least in cases in which non-vaccination is due to practical obstacles, rather than to strong beliefs about vaccines, 2) ethically acceptable and less controversial than some alternatives, because it is not coercive and affects individual autonomy only in a morally unproblematic way, and 3) likely to receive support from the UK public, on the basis of original empirical research we have conducted on the lay public.
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spelling oxford-uuid:eb2bf9dc-1f33-4bde-b68b-6aa89a62a47e2022-03-27T11:07:42ZNudging immunity: the case for vaccinating children in school and day care by defaultJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:eb2bf9dc-1f33-4bde-b68b-6aa89a62a47eSymplectic Elements at OxfordSpringer Verlag2019Giubilini, ACaviola, LMaslen, Hal., EMany parents are hesitant about, or face motivational barriers to, vaccinating their children. In this paper we propose a type of vaccination policy that could be implemented either in addition to coercive vaccination or as an alternative to it in order to increase paediatric vaccination uptake in a non-coercive way. We propose the use of vaccination nudges that exploit the very same decision biases that often undermine vaccination uptake. In particular, we propose a policy under which children would be vaccinated at school or day-care by default, without requiring parental authorization, but with parents retaining the right to opt their children out of vaccination. We show that such a policy is 1) likely to be effective, at least in cases in which non-vaccination is due to practical obstacles, rather than to strong beliefs about vaccines, 2) ethically acceptable and less controversial than some alternatives, because it is not coercive and affects individual autonomy only in a morally unproblematic way, and 3) likely to receive support from the UK public, on the basis of original empirical research we have conducted on the lay public.
spellingShingle Giubilini, A
Caviola, L
Maslen, H
al., E
Nudging immunity: the case for vaccinating children in school and day care by default
title Nudging immunity: the case for vaccinating children in school and day care by default
title_full Nudging immunity: the case for vaccinating children in school and day care by default
title_fullStr Nudging immunity: the case for vaccinating children in school and day care by default
title_full_unstemmed Nudging immunity: the case for vaccinating children in school and day care by default
title_short Nudging immunity: the case for vaccinating children in school and day care by default
title_sort nudging immunity the case for vaccinating children in school and day care by default
work_keys_str_mv AT giubilinia nudgingimmunitythecaseforvaccinatingchildreninschoolanddaycarebydefault
AT caviolal nudgingimmunitythecaseforvaccinatingchildreninschoolanddaycarebydefault
AT maslenh nudgingimmunitythecaseforvaccinatingchildreninschoolanddaycarebydefault
AT ale nudgingimmunitythecaseforvaccinatingchildreninschoolanddaycarebydefault