Build Vaccine Trust While Managing Risk-News

Hugging your parents. Meet my grandson for the first time. Laugh with friends — directly! The Covid-19 vaccine promises to bring us closer to our loved ones and enjoy the moments we’ve missed in the last 14 months. The joy of those who have already been vaccinated is clear. On social media, people self-document and share the moment of vaccination with the message “I am protected!”.

Faced with some recently reported rare cases of blood clotting after Vaccination with Covid-19, that enthusiasm cannot be lost.

How these risks are managed, communicated, and-most importantly-recognized is important for maintaining public confidence in the Covid-19 vaccination drive. And in this context, people’s trust in policy makers, experts and institutions is as important as trust in the vaccine itself. Our leaders need to be transparent in their actions and recognize that daily delays and determination in vaccine delivery provide a fertile basis for anxiety and false information.

To reassure the public, we need to change our approach and talk about risk management as an ongoing process. This is the approach scientists and regulators follow when evaluating vaccines. The government will create a vaccine safety monitoring system to observe signs of possible risks and ensure that guidance is based on up-to-date data. This is an iterative process, and finding rare side effects means that the system is working.

Scientists and regulators use the same process for everything from over-the-counter painkillers to chemotherapeutic drugs, but they are often invisible to the general public. In contrast, the Covid-19 vaccine is designed, approved, and administered in the global spotlight, with expanded reports of all steps in the development process and all potential risks, shared worldwide. It has been. As a result, rare side effects appear to be more common than they really are, making it more difficult for the general public to assess risk.

The public can manage risk. For example, manage risk individually or collectively each time you leave home, drive a car, or take medication. But people need clear information. In the case of reported blood clots, this means understanding not only the risks that may be associated with vaccination with the Covid-19 vaccine, but also the risks of choosing not to be vaccinated. Healthcare providers and vaccination providers also need to clearly communicate the signs and symptoms of possible serious vaccine reactions so that people can understand when to seek treatment immediately.

This applies to all vaccines. Vaccines are very effective and save 2 to 3 million lives worldwide each year, but anxiety about vaccines is nothing new. The first anti-vaccine league emerged in the United Kingdom in the 19th century after the government mandated smallpox vaccination. Some thought that vaccination (then known as “variolation”) was unnatural and “contrary to God’s plan.” However, vaccination was far more dangerous than it is today, and many thought it was worth the risk in the face of a catastrophic epidemic.

Today we are facing Covid-19. This is another deadly pathogen that somehow affects everyone. The Vaccine Confidence Project monitors social media globally to understand people’s questions and concerns about the Covid-19 vaccine and the success of trust building. The most frequent themes we see are impatient calls to put off a pandemic in more than 200 languages. And vaccines are central to achieving this. But for some, enthusiasm alone is not enough to motivate them to get vaccinated. They need to feel more confident at first.

Therefore, at the individual level, people need to be able to ask questions about the Covid-19 vaccine without being treated negatively and have the information and support they need to make informed decisions. Doctors and nurses are the most trusted members of society, so it is important to have time to empathize with the patient’s concerns. However, we also need up-to-date information and guidance to communicate with patients and increase their confidence in Covid-19 vaccination.

At the policy level, governments need to invest in short-term and long-term communication and public involvement to support the delivery of vaccines. And policy makers and scientific institutions need to be more agile and learn to speak directly and transparently with the public about important discoveries.

The important thing is not only to get the vaccine information correctly, but also to build trust by associating it with people’s questions and responding in a meaningful way in daily life. When the next crisis with various risks arises, the public will remember how their concerns were addressed during this crisis.

It’s quite normal to ask about vaccines. How we respond to them will make all the difference. If you respond well and build public trust now, you have the opportunity to build a solid foundation of trust in responding to the next health crisis.

Heidi J. Larsson, Founding Director of the Vaccine Reliability Project, is a professor of anthropology and risk at the London School of Economics and Tropical Medicine.