Vaccine-preventable diseases have re-emerged as more individuals have strayed from the recommended inoculation schedule. Previous work on vaccine hesitancy is generally limited to content analyses. Using grounded theory, this project examines vaccine debates on a prominent discussion board over a period of five years. Individuals generally justified opposition or hesitancy toward vaccines throu...

This systematic review describes the current relationship between health literacy (HL) and vaccination (including attitude to vaccines, intention to vaccinate, and vaccine uptake). The aim is to comprehend the role of HL as a determinant of vaccine hesitancy. For this purpose, the following databases were explored from 1 January 2007 to 15 January 2017: PubMed, Embase, PsycINFO, ERIC, Health Ev...

Every day across the United States, family physicians wrestle with how to best communicate to patients the clear benefits and potential harms of recommended vaccinations. When the current childhood immunization schedule is followed, it is estimated that 42,000 deaths and 20 million cases of disease are prevented annually.1 Additionally, from 2001 to 2010, vaccine use derived net savings of near...

Internal conflict, in which a character is torn by opposing motivations, is central to drama. Actors portray such conflict in part by mimicking involuntary behaviors that occur as a result of such conflicts. In this paper, we examine the role of timing – pauses and hesitation, in particular – in internal conflict. We argue that virtual actors can be made more expressive if we can emulate the un...

The opposition to vaccinations is a well-known phenomenon that dates back to the Victorian age when it was self-limited by the awareness of the importance to be protected against fearsome infectious diseases. In the XX century, the mass use of vaccination has - instead - consented to eradicate or drastically reduce the burden of diseases such as smallpox and polio. These positive effects of the...