The politics of vaccine hesitancy in Europe.

Background: Vaccine hesitancy threatens public health. Some evidence suggests that vaccine hesitancy in Europe may be linked with the success of populist parties, but more systematic analysis is needed.

Methods: We examine the prevalence of individual-level vaccine hesitancy across the European Union (EU) and its association with political orientations.

Association of vaccine hesitancy and immunization coverage rates in the European Union.

While previous studies have validated vaccine hesitancy scales with uptake behavior at the individual level, the conditions under which aggregated survey data are useful are less clear. We show that vaccine public opinion data aggregated at the subnational level can serve as a valid indicator of aggregate vaccine behaviour. We use a public opinion survey (Eurobarometer EB 91.