OP-15 The Cultural Evolution of Vaccine Hesitancy: Modeling the Interaction between Beliefs and Vaccination Behaviors
Presenting Author: Kerri-Ann Anderson, Vanderbilt University
Co-Author(s): Nicole Creanza, Vanderbilt University
Abstract: Vaccine-preventable diseases (VPDs), such as measles, pertussis, and polio, have resurged in the developed world as a result of decreasing vaccination coverage due to increased vaccine hesitancy. The current COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates the complexities of health behaviors and underscores the relevance of these behaviors to public health. Society, culture, and individual motivations affect health-related decisions, and health perceptions and behaviors can change as cultures evolve. In recent years, mathematical models of disease dynamics have begun to incorporate aspects of human behavior; however, they do not address how cultural beliefs influence these behaviors, or how these behaviors in turn impact cultural beliefs. Using a mathematical modeling framework, we explore the effects of cultural evolution on vaccine hesitancy and vaccination behavior. With this model, we shed light on the facets of cultural evolution that facilitate vaccine hesitancy, ultimately affecting levels of vaccination coverage and VPD outbreak risk. We show vaccine confidence and cultural selection pressures are driving forces of vaccination behavior, leading to a general pattern in which the spread of vaccine confidence leads to high vaccination coverage. We then demonstrate that an assortative preference among vaccine-hesitant individuals can lead to increased vaccine hesitancy and lower vaccination coverage. Further, we show that vaccine mandates can foster vaccine hesitancy despite high vaccination coverage, whereas vaccine scarcity can result in the opposite pattern of high vaccine confidence but low vaccination coverage. We present our model as a generalizable framework for exploring cultural evolution when beliefs influence, but do not strictly dictate, human behaviors.
