Beliefs about Vaccinations: Comparing a Sample from a Medical School to That from the General Population

Lauren E. Latella, Robert J. McAuley and Mitchell Rabinowitz
Additional contact information
Lauren E. Latella: Graduate School of Education, Fordham University, New York, NY 10023, USA
Robert J. McAuley: Institutional Effectiveness and Technology, Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine, Rochester, MI 48309-4482, USA
Mitchell Rabinowitz: Graduate School of Education, Fordham University, New York, NY 10023, USA

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 4, 1-13

Abstract: The current study compares health care professionals’ beliefs about vaccination statements with the beliefs of a sample of individuals from the general population. Students and faculty within a medical school ( n = 58) and a sample from the general population in the United States ( n = 177) were surveyed regarding their beliefs about vaccinations. Participants evaluated statements about vaccinations (both supporting and opposing), and indicated whether they thought the general population would agree with them. Overall, it was found that subjects in both populations agreed with statements supporting vaccination over opposing statements, but the general population was more likely to categorize the supporting statements as beliefs rather than facts. Additionally, there was little consensus within each population as to which statements were considered facts versus beliefs. Both groups underestimated the number of people that would agree with them; however, the medical affiliates showed the effect significantly more. Implications for medical education and health communication are discussed.

Keywords: expert knowledge; illusion of uniqueness; communication; vaccinations; consensus bias; medical affiliates (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/4/620/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/4/620/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:4:p:620-:d:138512

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().