The question of declining children's vaccination rates -- and how to improve them -- exploded into the public consciousness early this year when a measles outbreak, linked to Disneyland, spread across California and to other states.
Since then, SB 277, a bill to abolish the state's vaccine "personal belief exemption," moved through the legislature amid heated and vocal opposition. It was signed by the governor last month. Under the law, all school children must be vaccinated against 10 different diseases. Only those who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons are exempt.
A Perspective published in the journal Pediatrics offers a thoughtful breather on the rancorous debate we've seen in California. In the essay, Holly Witteman, an assistant professor of medicine at Laval University in Quebec, writes in favor of applying a "shared decision making" approach with vaccine hesitant parents. This means engaging them with a combination of information and helping people clarify their values.
"What I like about approaches like shared decision making," Witteman told me in an email, "is that they center the conversation around what matters to patients."
"We should at least be talking about these kinds of approaches when we talk about concerns about immunization rates, rather than throwing up our hands as though there is nothing that can be done to help parents overcome vaccine hesitancy."