What is vaccine confidence?
Vaccine confidence concerns the belief that vaccination – and by extension the providers and range of private sector and political entities behind it – serves the best health interests of the public and its constituents. The focus of this study is not on the myriad supply and access barriers to vaccination, but rather what is often called the “demand” side of immunisation.
Rather than building demand by increasing knowledge and awareness of vaccines and immunisations, we focus on building confidence by understanding what else drives vaccine confidence and people’s willingness to accept vaccines, when information, supply, and access are available.
The more difficult factors that affect vaccine confidence are beliefs, emotions, ideologies, and contextual concerns that often live outside of the immunisation or health programmes but affect both vaccination confidence and vaccination acceptance.
What is the focus of the VCP’s research?
Our research is divided across the following broad focus areas:
| Vaccines | Emergencies/outbreaks |
|---|---|
| Routine immunisation | Ebola |
| HPV | Zika |
| Maternal immunization | Dengue |
| Influenza | Polio |
| COVID-19 | COVID-19 |
| Measels |
| Communications and implementation | Determinants of health decision-making |
|---|---|
| Rumour management | Social |
| Risk communication | Structural |
| Policy advisory | Emotional |
| Community engagement | |
| Vaccine implementation programmes | |
| Enabling technologies | |
| Trials | |
| Pandemic Preparedness | |
| Intervention Design | |
| Misinformation | |
| Big Data |
What methods are used in the VCP’s research?
Our multidisciplinary team use a variety of methods to conduct their studies, including:
- Focus groups
- In-depth interviews
- Qualitative analyses
- Statistical analyses
- Storytelling
- Case study development
- Secondary analysis
- Social listening and digital analytics
- Media monitoring
- Surveys
- Literature reviews
- Monitoring, evaluation and learning
Who funds VCP’s work?
Strict operational and scientific independence is essential for the VCP and its partners. Funders have no role in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, or writing of studies conducted by the VCP. LSHTM’s research governance and integrity policy for more information about how funding decisions are made.