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During the last decade, public health research has emphasised the growing public disaffection with vaccination. This contemporary vaccine hesitation (VH) refers to a delay in acceptance or refusal of vaccines, as well as agreement despite doubt and reluctance. We investigated VH among French parents of young children, with an emphasis on two key features of VH: trust towards physicians and commitment to vaccination issues. We targeted two populations with contrasting socioeconomic profiles, using in‐depth interviews (n = 25). Most parents exhibited some kind of VH, with differentiated attitudes across vaccines, including acceptance despite enduring doubts, especially for vaccines already provided to older siblings ('vaccine inertia'). Despite the rise of the Internet and social media, our participants still strongly relied on face‐to‐face interactions with peers and significant others. Most participants trusted their own physician but this was the result of a selection process: they had engaged resources to find a physician they could trust. Participants with contrasted socioeconomic profiles struggled with the same dilemmas, and they committed themselves to the same quest to find the 'right' physician. Nevertheless, parents with a higher socioeconomic status were able to engage more resources and use a wider repertoire of actions, and they also displayed greater health literacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination coverage in France has fallen substantially since 2010 and the onset of a media controversy on the subject of its safety and efficacy. In this article we examine how and why mothers agree or do not agree to HPV vaccination for their daughters. We draw on data from a survey of French mothers of girls within the HPV vaccination target population (11–14 years old). We used semi-structured interviews to examine their perceptions of this relatively new vaccine and how such perceptions were shaped by their past experiences of vaccines and health in general. We also talked to them about their sources of information, their level of trust in these sources, and how their perception of risk changed as they accessed different and often contradictory information. We found that mothers’ fears of side effects and of ‘new’ vaccines was one of the main reason why they either refused to get their daughters vaccinated or hesitated. Mothers told us that they consulted several different sources, tended to trust their doctors most, but still questioned their recommendations. Although they presented the media and the Internet as untrustworthy, the information from those sources, whether gathered proactively or in passing, significantly influenced their decisions by introducing doubt or by prompting more information-seeking. In this article we show the dynamic nature of this decision-making process and we found that a substantial number of the mothers in our study said that they had been advised by at least one of their doctors not to have their daughter vaccinated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Tobacco control policies have succeeded in reducing tobacco use, but the negative correlation between smoking prevalence and socioeconomic status (SES) has increased. This study focused on the relationships between time preferences, SES, and smoking behaviour, attitudes and risk awareness. Methods: A cross-sectional telephone survey was conducted in France in 2008 on a representative national sample of people aged 18–75 (N = 2000, including 621 smokers) years. Two scales measuring planning horizon and impulsivity and various indicators of SES were introduced into the logistic regressions performed on smoking status and smokers’ attitudes to anti-smoking campaigns, quitting attempts, attempts to quit or smoke less, fear of smoking-related cancer and risk perception. Results: Indicators of lower SES and smoking status were correlated with present time orientation and impulsivity. On modelling smoking status, time orientation and lower SES were found to be significant predictors. Among smokers, lower SES and present time orientation were predictive of smoking-related outcomes: little personal concern with anti-tobacco campaigns, not reporting recent behavioural changes, not expressing personal fear of smoking-related cancer and low risk awareness. When time-related preferences were introduced into the analysis, the effects of several lower SES indicators (especially a low educational level) became non-significant. Conclusion: The relationship between SES and smoking behaviour, attitudes and beliefs may be partly mediated by time preferences. Time preference is strongly correlated with smoking status, risk perceptions and attitudes towards anti-smoking campaigns. Tobacco control policies should include messages targeting present time-oriented smokers and/or interventions designed to enhance more future-oriented attitudes among smokers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines attitudes to smoking among adolescents. Data for the study is derived from a large quantitative French cross-sectional survey of school students. Attitudes toward smoking were found to be associated with regularity and quantity of consumption, and the type of school attended. These associations are explained according to Becker's concept of a 'moral career', for attitudes differ among occasional, regular and heavy smokers. The association with school type indicates advanced formal schooling enables students to offer sophisticated rationalisations for smoking, combining an acknowledgement of health-related risks of smoking, emphasis on personal benefits derived from smoking, and claims that smoking is a private matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Vaccination against seasonal influenza (SIV) is recommended for patients with diabetes, but their vaccination coverage is unsatisfactory in France and elsewhere. This qualitative survey of people with diabetes sought to explore 1) the extent to which SIV-related behaviour is more or less automatic; 2) reasons they choose/reject SIV; 3) their trust/distrust in authorities, science, and medicine.Methods: We conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews of 19 adults with diabetes in 2014. We recruited them through physicians or patient associations and implemented an analysis of thematic content.Results: Eight patients were vaccinated against flu in the preceding flu season and 11 were not. SIV uptake and refusal were stable over time and justified by multiple arguments. Coupons for free vaccines and regular doctor visits contributed to the habit of vaccination. Vaccination decisions were frequently anchored in past experiences of influenza and its vaccine. Patients often justified non-vaccination with attitudes of trivialisation/relativisation of influenza-associated risks and the perception that these can be controlled by means other than vaccination (e.g., through the avoidance of exposure). Some misbeliefs (e.g., SIV causes influenza) and doubts about SIV effectiveness and safety also existed. Several patients reported increased mistrust of SIV since the A/H1N1 pandemic in 2009. Patients trusted their doctors strongly regardless of their SIV behaviour, but unvaccinated patients had little trust in the government and pharmaceutical companies. Some discordances were found between perceptions and behaviour (e.g., remaining vaccinated despite doubts about SIV effectiveness or remaining unvaccinated despite feelings of vulnerability towards influenza complication), suggesting the existence of some vaccine hesitancy among patients.Conclusion: This study among patients with diabetes suggest that SIV uptake is stable, thanks to a favourable environment. Nonetheless, SIV refusal is also stable over time. Unvaccinated patients used multiple arguments to justify SIV refusal, including compensatory health beliefs. Physicians should take every opportunity to recommend SIV. The necessary individualised patient education regarding SIV requires better physician training in patients priorities. While almost all patients strongly trust their doctors, unvaccinated patients distrust distal stakeholders: it is absolutely essential to restore trust in them and to develop new more effective influenza vaccines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Covid-19 spreads across the world, governments turn a hopeful eye towards research and development of a vaccine against this new disease. But it is one thing to make a vaccine available, and it is quite another to convince the public to take the shot, as the precedent of the 2009 H1N1 influenza illustrated. In this paper, we present the results of four online surveys conducted in April 2020 in representative samples of the French population 18 years of age and over (N = 5018). These surveys were conducted during a period when the French population was on lockdown and the daily number of deaths attributed to the virus reached its peak. We found that if a vaccine against the new coronavirus became available, almost a quarter of respondents would not use it. We also found that attitudes to this vaccine were correlated significantly with political partisanship and engagement with the political system. Attitudes towards this future vaccine did not follow the traditional mapping of political attitudes along a Left-Right axis. The rift seems to be between people who feel close to governing parties (Centre, Left and Right) on the one hand, and, on the other, people who feel close to Far-Left and Far-Right parties as well as people who do not feel close to any party. We draw on the French sociological literature on ordinary attitudes to politics to discuss our results as well as the cultural pathways via which political beliefs can affect perceptions of vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic. • Almost a quarter of the French population would not get vaccinated against COVID-19. • Attitudes are correlated with political partisanship and engagement with politics. • Attitudes do not follow the traditional separation between Left-wing and Right-wing. • Refusal is associated with proximity radical parties and to abstention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How much does endorsement of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) correlate with negative attitudes towards vaccines? One of the difficulties of analysing the relationship between attitudes to CAM and attitudes towards vaccines rests in the complexity of both. Which form of CAM endorsement is associated with what type of reticence towards vaccines? While the literature on the relationship between CAM and attitudes towards vaccines is growing, this question has not yet been explored. In this study we present the results of a survey conducted in July 2021 among a representative sample of the French mainland adult population (n = 3087). Using cluster analysis, we identified five profiles of CAM attitudes and found that even among the most pro-CAM group, very few respondents disagreed with the idea that CAM should only be used as a complement to conventional medicine. We then compared these CAM attitudes to vaccine attitudes. Attitudes to CAM had a distinct impact as well as a combined effect on attitudes to different vaccines and vaccines in general. However, we also found a) that attitudes to CAM provide a very limited explanation of vaccine hesitancy and b) that, among the hesitant, pro-CAM attitudes are often combined with other traits associated with vaccine hesitancy such as distrust of health agencies, radical political preferences and low income. Indeed, we found that both CAM endorsement and vaccine hesitancy are more prevalent among the socially disadvantaged. Drawing on these results, we argue that, to better understand the relationship between CAM and vaccine hesitancy, it is necessary to look at how both can reflect lack of access and recourse to mainstream medicine and distrust of public institutions. • We explore endorsement of CAM and Vaccine Hesitancy in their multifaceted nature. • VH is more prevalent among the socially disadvantaged and so is CAM endorsement. • Radical forms of endorsement of CAM are associated with distrust of vaccines. • But endorsement of CAM must be combined with other factors to result in strong VH. • CAM endorsement is a very limited explanation of negative attitudes to vaccines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]