What Parents Think About When They Think About Immunizations

Nico Baylosis, Verrazano Honors Class of 2018, completed a degree in Nursing

As I found myself on the last laps of nursing school, I felt that I wanted to become more involved in Pediatric Nursing. The subject of my capstone research project revolved around the thought process of parents when it came to the administration of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. This vaccine is usually given to children at 1- and 4-years old, with the permission of parents. Medical research has shown that if 95% of the population receives the vaccine then the disease would be considered eradicated in the community. Despite this there is still controversy and reluctance regarding the MMR vaccine and some parents decide not to vaccinate their children. Because of this, those in the population who are unable to receive this vaccine, such as immunocompromised or those allergic to the vaccine, are at risk for any of these diseases. I had spent my college summers working at a non-profit organization that established a summer camp that was meant for children with cancer and their siblings. As one of the medical staff, I had the privilege of getting to know these kids for nearly three years and have seen them grow. I thought of them as inspiration for this project. As oncology was not an area that I felt I could make progress in, in terms of pediatrics I saw the promotion of vaccine adherence in healthier children as indirectly providing protection against diseases for children with cancer.



I had initially intended to conduct an experiment for this project, however, I learned that the approval and creation process would have required me starting 2-3 years prior.  Instead I focused my attention towards understanding the refusal to a vaccine that seems necessary for a healthy community.  I felt that before I would be able to implement any intervention in a clinical setting, I would have to explore all the details of the basics. My research project led me to find more than 18 sources of studies that focused on the decisions and thought processes of parents when they refuse or accept the vaccines. My project took the form of an extensive literature review and comprised nearly all relevant research on parents and the MMR, including the original study published by Dr. Andrew Wakefield that virtually gave life to the belief of “vaccines causing autism.” I had also included studies of populations all over Europe, which looked for any correlation between receiving the vaccine and occurrence of autism. The results for these studies was that there was no correlation. 


Despite all this, there is still a significant amount of people who refuse this vaccine. A surprising find is that the majority of people who refuse the vaccine are not solely affected by the past idea of “the MMR vaccine causes autism.” While there were many factors affecting parents, the most common ones were vaccine safety, social media, lack of trust in health care professionals, and perceived risks of the diseases. While the overall end goal of this project is to increase awareness and promote the uptake of the vaccine, I went back to the basics so that we would better understand what goes through a parent’s mind when making these decisions. By acknowledging that these parents have concerns and addressing them individually, then there may be a better chance of improving the community vaccination rate. My results in this study only identified the main factors among parents. This capstone is only an introduction as I hope to take this study further myself and one day conduct my own experiment to improve community health in the future.