Community perceptions of vaccine advocacy for children under five in rural Guatemala.

Historically, partnerships with community leaders (e.g., religious leaders, teachers) have been critical to building vaccination confidence, but leaders may be increasingly vaccine hesitant.

Adapting and piloting a vaccine hesitancy questionnaire in rural Guatemala.

Introduction: We sought to (i) adapt a Spanish-language vaccine hesitancy (VH) tool to rural Guatemala, (ii) pilot the tool with 150 parents of children ≤ 5 years, and (iii) measure if parent scores associated with child under-vaccination.

Methods: We used implementation science to develop the adapted Guatemalan Vaccine Attitudes (GuaVA) tool, piloting it with 150 parents of children ≤ 5 years, and performing descriptive and adjusted regression analyses.

Results: Of 150 parents (response rate 99%), 55% (n = 83) of parents expressed a degree of VH.