Social media intervention improves child vaccination rates

By Reuters Staff

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A website with vaccine information and interactive social media components provided during pregnancy improves up-to-date infant vaccination rates, according to results from a randomized trial.

Many parents who hesitate to vaccinate their children distrust traditional sources of scientific authority and search online to gather information on vaccines.

Dr. Jason M. Glanz from Kaiser Permanente Colorado, in Denver, and colleagues evaluated the effectiveness of web-based vaccine information and social media interventions to increase vaccine acceptance as part of the Colorado Vaccine Social Media study.

They randomly assigned 1,093 pregnant women (mean age, 32), in a 3:2:1 ratio, to one of three ways of receiving information: a website with vaccine information and interactive social media components (VSM), a website just with vaccine information (VI), or only usual pediatric preventive care (UC).

At enrollment, 14% of participants were classified as vaccine-hesitant, and more than 62% reported using the internet for health information at least weekly, according to the November 6 Pediatrics online report.

Among 888 participants with 200 days of follow-up, more than a third of both the VSM and VI groups (35.0%) visited the assigned websites at least once, including 44% of vaccine-hesitant participants and 34% of non-hesitant participants. Participants in the VSM group contributed 90 online comments and questions during the study period.

For six vaccines recommended by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices - hepatitis B, rotavirus, diphtheria-tetanus-acellular pertussis, Haemophilus influenzae type b, pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, and polio - the research team assessed the number of days under-vaccinated and up-to-date vaccination status from birth to age 200 days.

They explained, "Because of the skewed distribution of days under-vaccinated, we used a nonparametric analysis and rank transformation approach. We ranked the days under-vaccinated for all infants and then compared the mean ranks across study arms using 1-way analysis of variance."

The mean ranks for days under-vaccinated were significantly lower in the VSM group (438.5 days) than in the UC group (465.4 days), but it did not differ significantly between the VSM and VI groups or between the VI and UC groups.

At the end of follow-up, 92.5% of VSM infants, 91.3% of VI infants, and 86.6% of UC infants were up-to-date on their vaccinations.

At age 200 days, infants in the VSM group were significantly more likely to be up-to-date on vaccinations than infants in the UC group (odds ratio, 1.92), regardless of whether their mothers had been vaccine-hesitant.

The findings persisted in a subanalysis that included only measles-mumps-rubella vaccination, but the differences were not statistically significant.

“These results suggest that interactive, informational interventions administered outside of the physician’s office can improve vaccine acceptance,” the researchers conclude.

Dr. Glanz did not respond to a request for comment.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2yAEvjq

Pediatrics 2017.

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