VANCOUVER - Parents may refuse to vaccinate their children during a pandemic and health care workers may reject immunization themselves if they believe a vaccine's risks outweigh the benefits, say researchers in British Columbia.
Their study published in Emerging Health Threats Journal also warns that complacent attitudes towards vaccinations can mean the difference between containing outbreaks and helping them spread.
"People were really, really consistent in terms of their concerns and their attitudes about using a new vaccine for a pandemic," said Natalie Henrich, a researcher at the University of British Columbia.
"People were really expressing a lot of hesitancy. . . . There were a lot of concerns that there were going to be risks associated with the vaccine."
For the study, Henrich and a researcher from Simon Fraser University conducted 11 focus groups that examined how people assess new vaccines during a health crisis.
Participants were asked how willing they would be to accept a new vaccine during a pandemic. Many said they wouldn't.
"The risks of the vaccines may in fact be greater than the risks associated with the disease, especially when it's a new disease and we might not know that much about it," Henrich said, when asked about common concerns from study participants.
"Maybe there's a chance the disease isn't all that serious so why voluntarily expose yourself to a vaccination risk when you may never even be infected with the disease?"
Those who expressed a fondness for alternative medicine were far less likely to endorse vaccination for themselves or for their children, with some suggesting they could simply protect against infection through hand washing and a healthy diet.
That's not enough, Henrich said.
"People felt like there was a lot of things they could do to protect themselves from getting infected and they thought it wouldn't be necessary to use a vaccine," she said, adding such steps were unlikely to protect against airborne and respiratory infections.
With an outbreak of the H1N1 virus expected this fall, the researchers stress the importance of having residents vaccinated. The vaccine against H1N1 is currently in production and testing. It should be available by the end of December.
Henrich said immunization is most effective when enough people are vaccinated to confer "herd immunity" on the rest of the population.
"If you have a high enough percentage of the population vaccinated, then you can actually stop the spread of the disease," she said.
Those who refuse vaccinations, the researchers say, put other members of the public at greater risk.
Some of the study's 85 participants expressed concerns about using a new vaccine during a pandemic for fear that pharmaceutical companies would cut back on safety testing.
To combat this fear and establish trust, Henrich suggested vaccines be developed in conjunction with academic institutions or government bodies.
Participants who worked in health care were among those unlikely to vaccinate, arguing that precautions like wearing masks and taking care with needles would be enough to avoid infection.
The focus groups were conducted between November 2006 and June 2007. Henrich said participants were warned about a hypothetical disease.
"Our goal of doing the focus groups was that in the event of a pandemic, we would have these findings ready to apply," she said.
"And so when H1N1 came along it then gave us basically a place to apply our findings and really make it relevant."
