Main description:

Controversies and scepticism surrounding vaccinations, though not new, have increasingly come to the fore as more individuals decide not to inoculate themselves or their children for cultural, religious, or other reasons. Their personal decisions put the rights of the individual on a collision course with public and community safety.
Public Health in the Age of Anxiety enhances both the public and scholarly understanding of the motivations behind vaccine hesitancy in Canada. The volume brings into conversation people working within such fields as philosophy, medicine, epidemiology, history, nursing, anthropology, public policy, and religious studies. The contributors critically analyse issues surrounding vaccine safety, the arguments against vaccines, the scale of anti-vaccination sentiment, public dissemination of medical research, and the effect of private beliefs on individual decision-making and public health. These essays model and encourage the type of productive engagement that is necessary to clarify the value of vaccines and reduce the tension between pro and anti-vaccination groups.

Contents:

Introduction and Theory
Introduction: Seeking a Better ConversationPaul Bramadat
1. Crises of Trust and Truth: Religion, Culture, and Vaccine Hesitancy in CanadaPaul Bramadat
2. Vaccine Hesitancy: Ethical Considerations from Multiple PerspectivesKieran C. O'Doherty, Christine Smith, and C. Meghan McMurtry
3. The Role of Risk Perception in Vaccine Hesitancy and the Challenge of CommunicationConrad G. Brunk
HISTORY
4. Learning from Smallpox Inoculation Refusal: Early Scientific Debates and the Evolution of Vaccine RefusalReal Roy
5. Not Without Risk: The Complex History of Vaccine Resistance in Central Canada, 1885-1960Heather MacDougall and Laurence Monnais
Biomedicine, the State and Vaccine Hesitant/Rejecting Communities
6. A Portrait of Vaccine-hesitant CanadiansMaryse Guay, Eve Dube, and Caroline Laberge
7. Vaccine Hesitancy and the use of Complementary and Alternative MedicineEve Dube, Chantal Sauvageau, and Dominique Gagnon
8. Epidemiologic Trends in Vaccine-Preventable Diseases and Immunization in CanadaJulie A. Bettinger and Shannon E. MacDonald
9. Canada's Vaccine Safety SystemMonika Naus, Barbara Law, and Aline Rifret
Vaccine Politics in Clinical, Media, and Community Settings
10. "It's Your Body, Your Decision": An Anthropological Exploration of HPV Vaccine Hesitancy:Jennafer Roberts and Lisa M. Mitchell
11. Approaching Vaccine-hesitant Parents - The Clinician's PerspectiveFrancois D. Boucher
12. The Roots of Vaccine HesitancyAndre Picard
13. Public Health and Personal HeuristicsNoni E. MacDonald
CONCLUSION
14. Continuing the ConversationPaul Bramadat, Julie A. Bettinger, and Maryse Guay
APPENDIX
INDEX
Contributors