Valuing COVID-19 Mortality Risk

This paper explores the question of public understandings, beliefs, and attitudes about vaccination in general, and childhood vaccination more specifically. The authors provide an overview of the existing literature on public thinking about vaccination and on effective communication strategies and interventions that have been either suggested or empirically tested. This description was extracted from the publication abstract.  

The authors performed a cost-benefit analysis to assess the economic impact of vaccinating healthy working adults between 18 and 64 years old with an influenza vaccine.  Monte Carlo simulation was used to calculate the direct and indirect costs associated with vaccination and those prevented by vaccination.  The authors found that vaccinating healthy working adults was, on average, cost-saving.  

People's inability to update their memories in light of corrective information may have important public health consequences, as in the case of vaccination choice. The authors compare three potentially effective strategies in vaccine promotion: (1) one contrasting myths vs. facts, (2) one employing fact and icon boxes, and (3) one showing images of non-vaccinated sick children. Beliefs in the autism/vaccines link and in vaccines side effects, along with intention to vaccinate a future child, were…