engleski

VACCINE HESITANCY: CAN RELIGIOSITY DISTORT THE IMPACT OF KNOWLEDGE AND MEDIA INFORMATION?

Despite the scientific consensus on the effectiveness of vaccines in preventing infectious diseases, vaccine hesitancy is a growing global phenomenon. In the attempt to understand the phenomenon, two approaches derived from the public understanding of science studies are usually implemented. The first one highlights scientific or health literacy as a predictor of attitudes toward science and toward vaccines. The second approach highlights the range of sociocultural variables that can dampen or amplify the public acceptance of scientifically produced and proven knowledge. Following such an assumption, studies show that religiosity might act as a “filter” that can strengthen or weaken the relationship between adopted scientific knowledge and attitudes toward scientific facts when dealing with specific scientific topics. In other words, religion can act as a moderator of knowledge and vaccine hesitancy relationship. Thus, this paper will analyze religion’s role as a moderator of the relationship between knowledge, (positive) media information, and vaccine hesitancy by presenting results from online survey research. The data were conducted within a research project funded by the Croatian Science Foundation. All constructs were measured using previously validated scales, with vaccination attitudes measured by means of two independent scales. The results will be discussed in the context of the role of religion in contextualizing knowledge and public attitudes toward science.

Vaccine hesitancy, religiosity, media

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