Although the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that nearly all teenagers receive multiple vaccines, vaccination rates often fall short of target. In 2017, for example, the CDC estimated that only 48.6% of adolescents were up to date on the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, which prevents cervical cancer, although 65.5% received at least 1 dose of the multi-series series. recommended dose (which is currently 2 doses for children aged 11 to 12 years; and 3 doses for patients starting the series at 15). While practical considerations such as accessibility and availability of vaccines can be barriers to vaccination, psychological factors such as complacency with the pathogen and low confidence in the safety and efficacy of the vaccine contribute to the underutilization of the immunizer worldwide.
Vaccination and disease prevention more generally can be particularly challenging because patients and populations often lack personal or emotional connections to the intended outcome. Parents' decisions about vaccinating their children can be reasonably influenced by how they perceive the risk of illness or the risk Argentina Phone Number a devastating outcome, an outcome with which parents may have no personal connection or experience. For example, parents who choose not to vaccinate their young children against diseases such as measles perceive their children as less susceptible to infection and perceive the disease as less severe than parents who fully vaccinate their children. However, when large outbreaks of a vaccine-preventable disease such as measles occur in a local community, vaccination rates against that disease increase.
This change is likely due to an increased risk perceived by parents from a combination of an often small increase in absolute risk of the disease and a new connection to the disease. This increased perceived risk based solely on personal connection is an example of salience bias, or a tendency to judge the risk of an event by how personally connected someone is to the outcome. The potential role of salience in influencing vaccination decisions was assessed by analyzing HPV vaccination rates among preteen children whose mothers had adverse outcomes that may result from HPV infection (eg, cervical cancer) and now can be prevented with vaccines. The selection of participants children who turned 11 years old after the HPV vaccine was added to the recommended vaccination schedule was based on a national database of insurance claims and HPV vaccination rates among children whose mothers have or have had abnormalities cervical cancer (cervical cancer or need for a cervical biopsy.