Vaccine-hesitant new parents do not respond to web-based vaccine messages
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Customized web-based messages that provided new parents with vaccine information did not change their attitudes toward vaccines or positively impact infant vaccination, according to a randomized clinical trial.
Jason M. Glanz, PhD, a senior investigator at Kaiser Permanente Colorado’s Institute for Health Research, and colleagues enrolled 824 participants into three separate arms of the trial, including 276 in a web-based intervention called Vaccines and Your Baby (VAYB) “that provided new parents with vaccine information messages tailored to vaccine beliefs and values,” they wrote. They enrolled 274 participants into an untailored version of the same invention (UT) and 274 to receive usual care (UC).
The mean age of the women in the intervention was 32 years, with 14.3% being vaccine hesitant at the beginning of the trial. The rates of infants who were up to date on vaccinations at age 200 days in all groups were 91.44%, 92.86% and 92.31%, respectively.
The authors reported that infants in the VAYB group were not more likely to be up to date compared with those in the UC group (OR = 0.89; 95% CI, 0.45-1.76), nor were they more likely than those in the UT group (OR = 0.82; 95% CI, 0.42-1.63). The odds between the UC and UT groups did not differ either (OR = 1.08; 95% CI, 0.54-2.18).
“Reducing vaccination concerns and changing vaccination behavior is challenging,” Glanz told Healio. “This randomized controlled trial showed that online, tailored messaging did not have a measurable impact on vaccine acceptance among new parents.”
The authors also assessed two secondary outcomes — the first analyzed the completion of MMR and varicella vaccines with at least 489 days of follow-up, whereas the second was a repeated assessment of the primary trial but with the exclusion of the hepatitis B vaccination.
Those in the VAYB group did not show a significant difference from those in the UC group, when comparing completion rates for MMR and varicella (OR = 1.18; 95% CI, 0.49-2.84; OR = 1.06; 95% CI, 0.41-2.74). When comparing the two groups for adherence of vaccinations excluding HBV, there was also no significant difference (OR = 0.94; 95% CI, 0.47-1.88).
“For parents, it is important to stress that their pediatrician remains the most important source of vaccine information,” Glanz said. “Online information is highly variable, and parents should only access trusted sources of vaccine information, such as the AAP, CDC, NIH, state health departments.”
Glanz said that vaccine rates have continued to drop throughout the COVID-19 pandemic because some are nervous to go to doctors’ offices for fear of becoming infected.
“This is concerning for a variety of reasons,” he said. “It is therefore extremely important that we continue to stress the importance of vaccinations, address parental concerns, maintain trust and encourage timely vaccination.”