Unraveling COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in Europeans 50 and older through a lens of preventive practices.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the issue of vaccine hesitancy, leading researchers to study the determinants of people's willingness to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. This study is the first to comprehensively investigate the role of preventive practices at both the individual and contextual level, drawing on the theoretical concept of "cultural health capital".

Methods: Utilizing data from the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement (SHARE), covering information from 18,454 individuals aged 50 years and above residing in 25 European countries, we examined the influence of past engagement in preventive practices and the prevalence of such practices within a country on the likelihood of COVID-19 vaccine uptake.

Healthcare Professionals' Discursive Constructions of Parental Vaccine Hesitancy: A Tale of Multiple Moralities.

Healthcare professionals play a crucial role in addressing the concerns of vaccine-hesitant parents since they form a trusted source for vaccine-related information. An increasing body of evidence suggests that healthcare professionals are faced with complexities when navigating the sensitive topic of parental vaccine hesitancy, as they balance their own vaccine- and context-specific concerns with institutional and societal pressures to vaccinate. Furthermore, health choices, such as parental choices for childhood vaccination, are often linked to moralisation.

Trust matters: The Addressing Vaccine Hesitancy in Europe Study.

This article presents the design of a seven-country study focusing on childhood vaccines, Addressing Vaccine Hesitancy in Europe (VAX-TRUST), developed during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study consists of (a) situation analysis of vaccine hesitancy (examination of individual, socio-demographic and macro-level factors of vaccine hesitancy and analysis of media coverage on vaccines and vaccination and (b) participant observation and in-depth interviews of healthcare professionals and vaccine-hesitant parents. These analyses were used to design interventions aimed at increasing awareness on the complexity of vaccine hesitancy among healthcare professionals involved in discussing childhood vaccines with parents.

Recruiting a Hard-to-Reach, Hidden and Vulnerable Population: The Methodological and Practical Pitfalls of Researching Vaccine-Hesitant Parents.

While recruitment is an essential aspect of any research project, its challenges are rarely acknowledged. We intend to address this gap by discussing the challenges to the participation of vaccine-hesitant parents defined here as a hard-to-reach, hidden and vulnerable population drawing on extensive empirical qualitative evidence from seven European countries. The difficulties in reaching vaccine-hesitant parents were very much related to issues concerning trust, as there appears to be a growing distrust in experts, which is extended to the work developed by researchers and their funding bodies.