edc-fsc-gvc-2018-scientifictracks

7 / 15

Page 29
Note:
N o v e m b e r 1 4 - 1 5 , 2 0 1 8 | R o m e , I t a l y
Joint Event on
OF EXCELLENCE
IN INTERNATIONAL
MEETINGS
YEARS
Euro Diabetes Congress 2018, Global Vaccines Congress 2018
& Food Science Conference 2018 Archives of General Internal Medicine | ISSN: 2591-7951| Volume 2
&
&
NUTRITION, FOOD SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
International Conference on
DIABETES, ENDOCRINOLOGY & NURSING MANAGEMENT
World Congress on
VACCINES & VACCINATION
3rd Global Congress on
Mitja Vrdelja, Arch Gen Intern Med 2018, Volume 2 | DOI: 10.4066/2591-7951-C6-017
THE GROWING VACCINE HESITANCY
- COMMUNICATION ASPECTS AND
CHALLENGES
Mitja Vrdelja
National Institute of Public Health, Slovenia
Vaccination has significantly contributed to the reduction of mortality and
morbidity caused by vaccine preventable diseases. But nowadays many
people underestimate their infectiveness and the potential damage they can
cause. And the fact is, that more and more people hesitate or even reject
vaccinations. The other fact is that people are increasingly taking care of their
own health, want to be informed, and seek information fromdifferent sources.
They are progressively using the Internet for health issues. As a result, public
trust in vaccination has decreased in several countries, including Slovenia.
And as the influence of the internet grows, the question becomes how to
communicate about vaccination to parents, especially mothers, who have the
highest influence on the decision whether to vaccinate their children or not.
Beside that there are differences between mothers, which is why it makes
sense to segment them in order to research their profiles, standpoints and at-
titude towards vaccination and thus establish where and how communication
with them on the topic of vaccination is possible.
How to do it? Answer would be with using the Situational Theory of Publics
(STOP), which enables the identification of communicative behavior of indi-
vidual population groups. This theory enables the establishing of the extent
these groups communicate a certain topic actively or passively, or do not
communicate it at all. STOP distinguishes four types of public: nonpublic, la-
tent, aware, and active public; all of them foresee active and passive commu-
nication. If we presume that each of the independent variables has a low and
high value, we can split publics into eight different groups.
Communication has a substantial influence on attitudes toward vaccination.
Poor or inappropriate communication can lower the vaccination coverage and
contributes to hesitation of vaccination. There is a huge need for intensive
professional communication about vaccination on the internet and social me-
dia. The improvement of the communicational competences of doctors and
healthcare workers is essential to achieve better communication with parents
and the media, and needs to be focused on mothers and pregnant women.
Mitja Vrdelja has a master degree of public relations
and is a PhD candidate in the field of public relations.
Currently he is working at Slovenian National institute
of public Health, where he is a head of Communication
department. He daily encounters communicating health
topics and communication with different stakeholders as
well as other various fields of communication – internal
communication, media relations, crisis communication,
risk communication, strategic communication, corpora-
tive communication, etc. As a Slovenian representative,
he cooperates in various working groups of European
institutions: European Food Safety Agency (EFSA); Euro-
pean Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC);
European Commission. He is interested in researching of
health communication, especial he is focusing on vac-
cine communication.
BIOGRAPHY