Vaccine Confidence Project
{{short description|International vaccination information project}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox organization
| name = Vaccine Confidence Project
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| nickname = VCP
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| formation = 2010
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| purpose = To monitor public confidence in vaccines
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| headquarters = London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine's Vaccine Centre
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| leader_title = Director
| leader_name = Heidi Larson
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| board_of_directors = Heidi Larson, Pierre Van Damme, Leesa Lin{{cite web | url=https://www.vaccineconfidence.org/who-we-are/team/ | title=Our Team }}
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| website = {{URL|https://www.vaccineconfidence.org/}}
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The Vaccine Confidence Project (VCP) founded in 2010 by Heidi Larson, was developed in response to hesitancy and misinformation on vaccination programmes such as those that caused a boycott of polio eradication efforts in Northern Nigeria in 2003–04. It is an early warning system to identify and evaluate public confidence in vaccines, with the purpose of tackling the problem early, when it is likely to be manageable.
Housed in the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine's Vaccine Centre, the VCP uses a diagnostic tool that finds what sparks vaccine rumours, examines and evaluates what spreads those rumours and calculates the potential impact. It is a member of the Vaccine Safety Net, a project led by the World Health Organization.
Origins
The vaccine confidence project was founded in 2010 by Heidi Larson,{{Cite journal|last=Das|first=Pamela|date=10 September 2020|title=Heidi Larson: shifting the conversation about vaccine confidence|journal=The Lancet|volume=396|language=en|issue=10255|page=877|doi=10.1016/S0140-6736(20)31612-3|issn=0140-6736|pmid=32919523|s2cid=221590163|doi-access=free}} and developed in response to rumours and misinformation about vaccines such as those that caused a boycott of polio eradication efforts in Northern Nigeria in 2003–04.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GGUoDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA48|title=Building Communication Capacity to Counter Infectious Disease Threats: Proceedings of a Workshop|date=2017|publisher=National Academies Press|isbn=978-0-309-45768-2|language=en}}{{Cite journal|last1=Ghinai|first1=Isaac|last2=Willott|first2=Chris|last3=Dadari|first3=Ibrahim|last4=Larson|first4=Heidi J.|date=1 December 2013|title=Listening to the rumours: What the northern Nigeria polio vaccine boycott can tell us ten years on|url= |journal=Global Public Health|volume=8|issue=10|pages=1138–1150|doi=10.1080/17441692.2013.859720|issn=1744-1692|pmc=4098042|pmid=24294986}} It is housed in the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine's Vaccine Centre.{{Cite web|title=Vaccine Confidence Project|url=https://www.validate-network.org/vaccine-confidence-project|access-date=20 September 2020|website=www.validate-network.org|language=en}}{{Cite news|last=Anderson|first=Jenny|date=13 October 2020|title=She Hunts Viral Rumors About Real Viruses|work=New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13/health/coronavirus-vaccine-hesitancy-larson.html|url-status=live|access-date=19 October 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201019163949/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13/health/coronavirus-vaccine-hesitancy-larson.html?action=click&module=Top%2520Stories&pgtype=Homepage|archive-date=19 October 2020}} Among industry funders, the project is supported by vaccine manufacturers GlaxoSmithKline, Merck & Co., and Johnson & Johnson, as well as by the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries & Associations, and the industry-funded Innovative Medicines Initiative.{{Cite web|title=The Vaccine Confidence Project Partners & Funders|url=https://www.vaccineconfidence.org/partners-funders/|access-date=22 February 2021|website=The Vaccine Confidence Project|language=en-GB}}
Purpose
The purpose of the project is to monitor public confidence in immunisation programmes by building an information surveillance system for early detection of public concerns around vaccines.{{Cite web|title=The Vaccine Confidence Project|url=https://www.vaccineconfidence.org/|access-date=25 September 2020|website=The Vaccine Confidence Project|language=en-GB}}{{Cite journal|last=Gellin|first=Bruce|date=1 August 2020|title=Why vaccine rumours stick—and getting them unstuck|journal=The Lancet|language=en|volume=396|issue=10247|pages=303–304|doi=10.1016/S0140-6736(20)31640-8 |pmc=7392590|s2cid=220872330|issn=0140-6736|doi-access=free}}
The VCP is an early-warning system which identifies and evaluates public confidence in vaccines, with monitoring capabilities in some 63 languages. It aims at tackling problems early, when they are likely to be manageable, because as Larson explains: "early detection of and timely response to vaccine rumours can prevent loss of public confidence in immunization". It then aims to inform policy-makers of its findings.{{Cite journal|last1=Figueiredo|first1=Alexandre de|last2=Simas|first2=Clarissa|last3=Karafillakis|first3=Emilie|last4=Paterson|first4=Pauline|last5=Larson|first5=Heidi J.|date=10 September 2020|title=Mapping global trends in vaccine confidence and investigating barriers to vaccine uptake: a large-scale retrospective temporal modelling study|journal=The Lancet|volume=396|language=en|issue=10255|pages=898–908|doi=10.1016/S0140-6736(20)31558-0|issn=0140-6736|pmid=32919524|pmc=7607345|s2cid=221590846|doi-access=free}}
The toolkit
=Rumour diagnostic tool=
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| I. Rumour Prompters ("the triggers") | II. Sustaining and amplifying factors | III. Outcome and impact |
|---|---|---|
| Media and social media reports | Geographic spread | Vaccine refusals (or refusal of other disease control intervention) |
| News research | Frequency of rumour reported | Vaccine is suspended (often fuelling more anxiety and rumours) |
| New product | Historic bad experience that lowers public trust | |
| New recommendation or policy change | Media reports | Vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks |
| Adverse event following immunization | Socioeconomic marginalization | |
| Political motivations | Previous existence of self-organized community groups |
Research
The VCP is a member of the Vaccine Safety Net, a project led by the World Health Organization. Its researchers and team members include anthropologists, digital analysts, epidemiologists and psychologists.{{Cite web|title=WHO {{!}} Vaccine Confidence ProjectTM|url=https://www.who.int/vaccine_safety/initiative/communication/network/vaccineconfidenceproject/en/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210424110337/https://www.who.int/vaccine_safety/initiative/communication/network/vaccineconfidenceproject/en/|url-status=dead|archive-date=April 24, 2021|access-date=20 September 2020|website=WHO}} In 2011, research by the VCP found that refusal to vaccinate against polio increased in the Taliban dominant areas of Balochistan and FATA following rumours about the polio eradication programmes, triggered by the story of the CIA's fake immunisation campaign in the search for Bin Laden.{{Cite journal|last=Mohammadi|first=Dara|date=4 August 2012|title=The final push for polio eradication?|url=https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(12)61279-3/abstract|journal=The Lancet|language=en|volume=380|issue=9840|pages=460–462|doi=10.1016/S0140-6736(12)61279-3|issn=0140-6736|pmid=22870511|s2cid=37725098|doi-access=free}} In spring of 2020, the VCP carried out a survey of people's attitudes to a COVID-19 vaccine. The following September, in The Lancet, the VCP published the largest known study on vaccine confidence modelling. The study looked at data on the importance, efficacy and safety of vaccines in 290 national surveys of 284,381 adults in 149 countries, and found wide variation around the world.{{Cite web|last=Van Beusekom|first=Mary|date=11 September 2020|title=Rising vaccine wariness in some nations doesn't bode well for COVID vaccines|url=https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/09/rising-vaccine-wariness-some-nations-doesnt-bode-well-covid-vaccines|access-date=21 September 2020|website=CIDRAP|language=en}}{{Cite journal|last1=Salmon|first1=Daniel A.|last2=Dudley|first2=Matthew Z.|date=10 September 2020|title=It is time to get serious about vaccine confidence|journal=The Lancet|volume=396|language=en|issue=10255|pages=870–871|doi=10.1016/S0140-6736(20)31603-2|issn=0140-6736|pmid=32919522|s2cid=221590831|doi-access=free}}