The ongoing measles outbreak across the country shows that the anti-vaccination movement is powerful enough to create a legitimate public health crisis. There are now 940 reported cases of measles in 26 states. This is the country’s largest outbreak of the disease in a quarter century.
The size of this outbreak tells us that arguments in favor of vaccination are not working as well as we need them to. This is not because the pro-vaccine arguments are not scientifically sound (they are) or not well-publicized (again, they are). We are at a societal stalemate for one reason: People who argue in favor of vaccines are making rational arguments to people who have already proven themselves not to be moved by reason.
Anti-vaxxers are not going to be swayed by scientific facts. If they were the kind of people who could be convinced by science, they wouldn’t be anti-vaxxers. This is not to say that they can never be persuaded. Instead, productive conversation starts with something other than hard data.
A new study from Brigham Young University shows that, for "vaccine-hesitant" individuals, learning the story of a survivor of a vaccine-preventable disease is effective at changing their minds. Researchers had vaccine-hesitant college students conduct one-on-one interviews of survivors of vaccine-preventable disease. About 68% of the vaccine-hesitant people who interviewed a survivor were pro-vaccine at the end of the study, even though they “received no additional vaccine educational materials.” The experiences of vaccine-preventable disease survivors appealed to vaccine-hesitant people on an emotional level. According to researchers, “students whose interviewees experienced intense physical suffering or physical limitations...had significantly increased vaccine attitudes.”
When it comes to convincing anti-vaxxers, verbal and visual imagery does the trick. A prior study at the University of Illinois found that showing people photos of kids suffering from vaccine-preventable diseases and having them read the story of a mother of a sick child was more effective at changing people’s opinions than having them read scientific information about vaccines. Not only did this emotional appeal produce the greatest change in opinion, it worked best on those who were initially the most skeptical of vaccines.
This should be our playbook for addressing those who do not vaccinate. Unfortunately, approaching an anti-vaxxer with narratives and images is nowhere near as immediately cathartic as shouting them down with facts and figures.
These people are violating the rules of society with their willingness to put their children in harm’s way and to infect those too young or ill to be vaccinated. They are turning down one of the greatest advancements in the entire history of medical science because they saw a meme or a fake news article that scared them about autism. And yet, our totally understandable gut reaction to their wrongness will only make them dig in their heels.
Someone who has decided not to vaccinate their children is making a decision based on fear. Even though the basis of their fear is false, the fear itself is real. These people are afraid of introducing “toxins” to their child’s body, and very often afraid that the vaccines will cause autism. Instead of taking the supposed “risk” of vaccinating, they opt out.
For an anti-vaxxer to change their mind, they do not need to be fully convinced that vaccines are harmless. They only need to believe that the “risk” posed by vaccination is more acceptable than the risk of contracting a vaccine-preventable disease. We do not have to convince them that vaccines are great (even though they are). We need only get them to see a tiny little sliver of the light.
I know that this sounds like a lot of effort, effort that we shouldn’t have to go through just to get people to do the bare minimum of responsible parenting. In a perfect world, we wouldn’t have to spoon-feed stories of human suffering to people to get them to vaccinate their kids. But we do not live in a perfect world. We live in a world where highly contagious and deeply painful diseases can spread quickly, and where herd immunity is growing weaker by the day. It is worth the effort of delivering these narratives to anti-vaxxers because it is the best method of convincing them to vaccinate their kids.
Anti-vaxxers are frustrating, illogical, and deeply in the wrong. They are not lost causes. They are operating from a place of emotion, not reason. If we can meet them there with compassion and evidence of what these diseases really are, we can start to change their minds.
Angela Morabito (@AngelaLMorabito) writes about politics, media, ethics, and culture. She holds both a bachelor's and master's degree from Georgetown University.
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