Vaccination takes more than just facts and logic

Author of A Matter of Fact about Covid-19 Vaccinations

Ihad concerns about the Covid-19 vaccination and I got vaccinated. It feels a bit out there saying this given that I do research into how to encourage people to get vaccinated, but there it is.

My concerns, like many people’s, were driven by a few different things. I have in the past had severe allergic reactions to some medications. The kind where you find you can’t breathe. Combined with hearing and seeing some of the intentionally very fear-inducing vaccine denial stories, it gave me a bit more ‘‘what if?’’ than I was comfortable with.

Despite these niggling fears I got vaccinated. My 12-year-old and I rode our bikes down the quiet streets of lockeddown Wellington to our vaccination centre. Once there, the woman giving the vaccination talked us through it, reassured me they would be looking out for us, and then efficiently vaccinated me.

It was fine. Totally fine. I am really pleased to have had it done. It shows what we see in the research, that most people with concerns about getting vaccinated go on to get vaccinated if the conditions are right.

What were the right conditions for me? What are they for others? Given I am a social scientist working on vaccination, you might think reading about the facts of Covid-19 and vaccination would create the conditions for me to get vaccinated.

However, I know from my own research that logic doesn’t primarily drive how we make decisions. That I had doubts is proof enough of that. Our process is more nuanced and emotional.

What created the conditions to help me get vaccinated were the people around me and the reassurance they offered, including my own GP. Knowing these people cared about me and my health helped me accept the science, and overcome that ‘‘flight or fight’’ response.

What also reassured me when those ‘‘what if?’’ thoughts were sparking off was thinking about the people around me: my kids and partner, my mum, my colleagues and their parents and kids, my elderly neighbours and what I could do for them.

It was helpful to know that I was one of many people getting vaccinated to protect those we care about. And it was empowering to know that my action, alongside others’ actions, will help keep the worst of the virus out and eventually stop the pandemic.

Reflecting my own experience, my research on Covid-19 vaccination with Australian colleagues found that people’s worries about vaccination come from many different places. For example the stories and questions posed by people who actively deny vaccines are designed to engage our ‘‘fearful brain’’ (the automatic flight or fight response).

When these stories are repeated across social and mainstream media frequently they can interact with a bad experience with a healthcare worker, or our fear of needles. It’s enough to make us question whether we should get the vaccination.

Even things seemingly unrelated to vaccination like being treated badly by a person in government, or reading hurtful things in the media about your community over and over, can interact with false information to erode our trust in the good science that is beneficial to us.

It seems illogical that people would reject the very tool that will help us out of this pandemic because of cooked-up stories, and emotions and experiences, but that is because people are not motivated and driven by data points.

What we found is that if people are worried about getting vaccinated for various reasons then facts and logic won’t work to reassure them about whether it’s safe. What people need is connection and care, and to hear that from other people who they feel have their best interests at heart.

For instance, during our research we found that when we tell people they are more likely to die from a car accident, or cancer, or Covid itself, than a vaccine event, it doesn’t make them feel more reassured about vaccination.

What people did find reassuring was knowing that people in the healthcare system were looking out for them, monitoring the vaccination, and had their wellbeing at heart. Knowing those things made it easier for them to accept that vaccinations were safe.

We also found that people felt reassured hearing that vaccination was something active they could do for the good of the people they loved, and to get back to the things that they love doing.

This research reminds us that as humans we are complex emotional creatures, driven to connect with each other.

We are reassured by people who we care about, and who we trust and admire. Only then, once we are reassured, do we accept the facts.

What people need is connection and care, and to hear that from other people who they feel have their best interests at heart.