Vaccine hesitancy

Vaccine hesitancy refers to delay in acceptance or refusal of vaccines despite availability of vaccination services. Vaccine hesitancy is complex and context specific varying across time, place and vaccines. It includes factors such as complacency, convenience and confidence.

ECDC’s focus is to provide information about hesitant populations, determinants of hesitancy and outcomes of research on the topic, to allow public health to be better informed about the nature of hesitant populations’ concerns, and respond appropriately. In particular, ECDC provides guides and toolkits for healthcare workers, immunisation programme managers and public health experts to support their efforts in addressing vaccine hesitancy.