'History of Science, Medicine, and Technology' Seminar

Katie Attwell (University of Western Australia and Visiting Scholar, Uehiro Oxford Institute)

Commentaries from: 

Sally Frampton (Oxford)
Isabela Cabrera Lalinde (Oxford)
Philippa Matthews (Francis Crick Institute and UCL)

The vaccine hesitancy concept has been used in technical and policy circles over the last decade to explain challenges with vaccine uptake, with the World Health Organization (WHO) declaring vaccine hesitancy a top ten threat to human health in 2019. However, the concept has also been controversial. Even some experts most closely associated with the term argue that it has been inappropriately used to blame individuals for systemic failures, especially during the COVID-19 vaccine rollout. This paper traces the emergence of the concept of vaccine hesitancy, drawing on in-depth interviews with global experts and analysis of documents and publications from a WHO working group that developed the concept between 2012 and 2014. Our analysis highlights several key dynamics that help to explain how the idea of vaccine hesitancy has developed and circulated amongst technical experts, academic researchers, policymakers, the media, and the public.  No booking required. 

Programme:

16:00-16:45 Katie Attwell, Vaccine Hesitancy: The History of an Idea

16:45-16:55 Sally Frampton, Vaccine Hesitancy” and “Anti-vaxx”

16:55-17:10 Isabela Cabrera Lalinde, and Philippa Matthews

17:10-17:30 General Discussion

The seminar in the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology is convened by Alex Aylward (University of Oxford), Erica Charters (Wolfson College), Mark Harrison (Green Templeton College), Catherine Jackson (Harris Manchester College), and Sloan Mahone (University of Oxford)