Newsletter N°02 – June 2024

Newsletter

N°02 – June 2024
Dear members of the SHS-vaccination-France network,

We are pleased to send you this second newsletter from the SHS-vaccination-France network. Its aim is to keep you up to date with network news (new members, publications, etc.) or news of interest to the network (conferences, calls for projects, etc.). We also feature a selection of recent publications. Please let us know of any information you would like to see included in this newsletter, especially your recent publications as well as if you would like to present your work in next year’s SHS-Vaccination seminar.
 
Foreword from the coordinators

The second remote seminar took place last Friday (June 14, 2-4pm). You’ll find a link to the recording below.

This second seminar was devoted to a behavioral economics approach to vaccine hesitancy among healthcare professionals, with a presentation by Léontine Goldzahl entitled “Croyances liées aux normes et vaccination des infirmiers en France”.

Séance 2 : Croyances liées aux normes et vaccination des infirmiers en France

Co-authors: James Tremewan (Università degli Studi di Roma “Tor Vergata”).

Abstract: Low influenza vaccination rates among nurses have implications for the protection of vulnerable patients and healthcare professionals, as well as for the sustainability of the healthcare system. This study aims to identify normative and factual beliefs associated with the vaccination decision in order to determine interventions likely to increase vaccination rates. We conducted a survey of 397 nurses (214 working professionals, and 194 students), structured around Bicchieri’s (2017) classification of norm-related beliefs. Our results indicate that interventions providing evidence-based information on the protective value for patients, and reinforcing the belief that other nurses are vaccinated, could be effective in increasing vaccination uptake. However, emphasizing the belief among the general population that nurses should be vaccinated could have counterproductive effects.

Here is the link to the video of the seminar

We would like to take this opportunity to inform you of the publication of a second note resulting from the questionnaire surveys we carry out as part of ICOVAC. This note summarizes some of the results of our latest survey, carried out this winter. The results concern the organization of the HPV vaccination campaign in secondary schools, the bivalent influenza/Covid-19 vaccine, RSV, and changes in vaccination attitudes during the epidemic. The report is available here (in French and English):

ICOVAC Wave 2 survey : French people’s opinions on vaccines in winter 2023

We would also like to remind all network members to let us know about their publications and news, so that we can circulate them via the website and newsletter, and include them in future versions of the report “Research into the human and social aspects of vaccination in France since Covid-19”.


Best wishes,

Patrick, Jeremy & Pierre

 
Members of the network
Since the last newsletter in March, 7 people or groups joined the network :

  • Shirine Abdoul Carime – doctoral student, sociology, EHESS (CESSP)
  • Sarah Demart -sociology, Observatoire du sida et des sexualités, Université Libre de Bruxelles
  • Maude Dionne – psychologist, public health, Institut national de santé publique du Québec – Lucille Gallardo, sociology, Aix-Marseille Université (Mesopolhis)
  • Paul Guille-Escuret – doctoral student, sociology, EHESS (CMH)
  • Lucille Ruault – sociology, CNRS (CERMES3)
  • Santé Publique France
You can check their pages to discover their work
Read more
News of interest to the network
We invite network members to let us know about upcoming events, calls for papers and articles, funding opportunities, partner searches, etc., directly related to the vaccine theme in France and abroad, but also on adjacent themes.
Publications by network members
The purpose of the newsletter is to announce publications by network members. As with the news, we invite network members to let us know directly of any publications you would like to see included in this list.
 
Reading suggestions
Vaccine Hesitancy in the Nordic Countries. Trust and Distrust During the COVID-19 Pandemic, sous la direction de Lars Borin, Mia-Marie Hammarlin, Dimitrios Kokkinakis et Fredrik Miegel, Routledge 2024 (disponible en open access).

This collective, multidisciplinary work is the fruit of a meeting between an ethnologist, a sociologist and two researchers in computational linguistics, and of an initial joint project launched before the Covid-19 pandemic to study vaccination-related rumors on the Internet and social networks. The contributions mobilize both quantitative and qualitative data, collected in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland, and are organized in three parts. The first is entitled Nordic trust in tension. Scandinavian countries have historically been characterized by much higher levels of interpersonal and institutional trust than elsewhere: how has “Nordic trust” been put to the test by the uncertainties generated by the health crisis? This first part is also conceptually rich, with proposed distinctions between “Apollonian” and “Dionysian” trust, as well as between distrust and mistrust. The second part, Le Covid-19 dans les discours publics (Covid-19 in public discourse), extends the discussion of trust and related concepts, while comparing institutional and lay discourse, with a particular focus on the expression of vaccine reluctance. Finally, the last part focuses on the margins, both their discourses (e.g. the vaccine reluctance expressed by followers of charismatic Christianity) and the discourses portrayed about them (e.g. immigrants and their supposed shortcomings: lack of confidence, lack of health literacy…). All in all, this excellent book poses at least as many questions as it answers, and in particular supports three observations: vaccine hesitancy cannot be reduced to an irrational reaction of ill-informed individuals; the public distrusts science less than those who claim to speak in its name; finally, understanding this hesitancy, like other aspects of the health crisis, requires careful investigation of national, regional and even local contexts.

 



Attwell, K., et al., The collaboration on social science and immunisation (COSSI): Global lessons from a successful Australian research and practice network, Vaccine, 42(7), 2024.

This article presents the process that led to the creation of the Collaboration on Social Science and Immunisation (COSSI) in Australia and the activities of this network. COSSI was established in 2016 with the support of Australia’s national and regional health authorities. It aims to “Inform Australian immunisation policy and practice with high-quality evidence from the social sciences by supporting capacity in research and evaluation, collaborations and translation.”. The network brings together researchers in the social sciences and public health, as well as field workers and user representatives. The network was set up in response to growing interest in the issue of under-vaccination and the mobilization of researchers in this field. Its aim was to structure and perpetuate a research community on this topic, and to facilitate the circulation of social science research findings to public health decision-makers and field workers. COSSI was particularly active during the Covid-19 epidemic, notably through the production of summary documents on the organization of and support for vaccination campaigns.

COSSI was one of the very first networks created to promote research into the social aspects of vaccination. It was naturally one of the main inspirations for the creation of the SHS-Vaccination-France network. More focused on advising public decision-makers, COSSI has benefited from substantial institutional and financial support, enabling it to develop and sustain a wide range of activities, including an annual symposium and workshops. With the SHS-Vaccination-France network, we wanted to create a tool for a wide range of researchers interested in vaccination, including those who are more distant from the world of public health. Nonetheless, this article suggests a number of avenues and ideas for the future development of the SHS-Vaccination-France network.

 
Focus on one publication from the ICOVAC-France project
Ward, JK, S Cortaredona, H Touzet, F Gauna, P Peretti-Watel, Explaining political differences in attitudes to vaccines in France: partisan cues, disenchantment with politics and political sophistication, Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, 2024

Context: The role of political identities in determining attitudes to vaccines has attracted a lot of attention in the last decade. Explanations have tended to focus on the influence of party representatives on their sympathizers (partisan cues).

Methods: Four representatives samples of the French adult population completed online questionnaires between July 2021 and May 2022 (N = 9,177). Bivariate and multivariate analyses were performed to test whether partisan differences in attitudes to vaccines are best explained by partisan cues or by parties’ differences in propensity to attract people who distrust the actors involved in vaccination policies.

Findings: People who feel close to parties at the far left, the far right and to green parties are more vaccine hesitant. We found a small evidence for the effect of partisan cues and a much stronger effect of trust. But more importantly, we show that the more politically sophisticated are less vaccine hesitant and that the non-partisan are the biggest and most vaccine-hesitant group.

Conclusions: The literature has focused on the case of the USA but turning the attention towards countries where disenchantment with politics is more marked helps better understand the different ways trust, partisanship and political sophistication can affect attitudes to vaccines.

 
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To consult the French version of this newsletter:
Lettre d’information N°02 – Juin 2024
Upcoming newsletter October 2024
 

SHS & vaccination network France

In France, as elsewhere, the Covid-19 pandemic has been an extraordinary catalyst for research in the Social and Human Sciences (SHS) on vaccine-related issues. Created with the support of the ANRS-MIE, the SHS Vaccination France network is intended for all those interested in such research. It aims to foster contacts, exchanges and collaborations between its members. It distributes information and news (calls for projects, job offers, symposia, publications, etc.) via a newsletter (registration details below) and regularly organizes scientific meetings.
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