Onze beursstudenten

Dokter Marie NEUNEZ

Onderzoek in het kort !

Project

Vaccination against human papillomavirus: a multidisciplinary approach to strengthen vaccine confidence in the French speaking part of Belgium

Project supervisor

Labo of hospitaal waar het project plaatsvindt

Laboratory of molecular bacteriology, Faculty of Medicine, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) & Clinica Alemana (Santiago, Chile) or UC Chile (Santiago, Chile)

Objectives of research

• The primary objective of this research project is to identify the main factors accounting for the low HPV immunization coverage in Wallonia and Brussels-Capital Region.
• The second objective is to strengthen HPV vaccine confidence in the French speaking part of Belgium.
• The third objective is to promote health literacy and more specifically make young citizens savvy about infectious diseases and risk-benefit balance of immunization in order to improve the immunization coverage of vaccines in general.

Summary

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines vaccine hesitancy as the delay in acceptance or refusal of vaccines despite the availability of vaccination services. This is a complex phenomenon: it is context specific, varying across time, place and vaccines. The challenge of vaccine hesitancy is not new, but today, due to the extent it has taken in recent years, it threatens to reverse progress made in tackling vaccine-preventable diseases. This doctoral research will focus on the Belgian problem of mistrust in vaccines, with particular emphasis on the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine which, if its vaccination coverage rate increases, will reduce substantially, if not eliminate, cervical cancer. Both vaccine hesitancy and effective vaccination are not uniform across the Belgian territory. As an example, vaccination of Belgian adolescents against HPV shows a coverage rate reaching 90% in Flanders and only 36% in the Wallonia-Brussels federation. This disparity is likely to be the result of the distinct vaccination programme implemented in the Belgian regions and of the vaccine information available to the public. Nowadays, Internet is used as a primary source of information, especially regarding health. Fake news and misinformation on vaccines are circulating rapidly on the net and have a major impact on the way the population perceives vaccines. They can undoubtedly exacerbate the fear of the population towards diseases and vaccines. The so called “infodemic” and disinformation on Coronavirus covid-19 nowadays is the perfect example of what web users have been confronted to with vaccines for the past few years. Strangely, to date, few scientific researches analyse the prevalence and impact of fake news on individuals. This thesis project aims to (1) identify the factors explaining the contrast between the Belgian regions, (2) analyse the sources of information available to the general public and (3) to develop a strategy focused on adolescents to increase protection against the human papillomavirus in Belgium, specifically in Wallonia and Brussels-Capital Region which reveals very low HPV vaccination coverage. A novel aspect of this project is the special focus on children and adolescents. Although being the first affected by this health issue, they are often forgotten in the fight against vaccine hesitancy.