HUMSS Phenomenological Research

Chapter 1.1 | BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

In today's cenozoic era, the entire humankind is still in the midst of a biological crisis caused by that of the deadly colossal pathogen, Covid-19 virus, that have ravaged the global economy, and have permeated all facets of society. On behalf, the general rise of vaccine hesitancy is one symptom of broader societal shift towards individualism and greater distrust of government, science professionals, and facts. In part, it is fuelled by disinformation on social media that have prompted governments to urge social media campaigns to exert greater control over rumors and falsehoods (Dr Khor Kheng, 2020). Within this paradigm, it is indeed significant to recognize that there is a diversity of views among individuals, that every person lies on a continuum with hesitancy in vaccines on one end, and complete refusal at the other.

It has been years since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared an outbreak of  Covid-19, a public health emergency of international concern. Since then, hundred million cases have been recorded and over a million lives were lost (WHO, 2020). A safe, effective Covid-19 vaccine is expected to be developed in record time and may be approved for production, distribution and acceptance, which just happened in the previous months, to achieve an acceptable level of herd immunity. Nevertheless, nowadays reluctance to accept vaccination against Covid-19 poses a significant public health risk and is known to be a multi-determined phenomenon. It is being challenged by inequitable vaccine hesitancy sentiments especially among low and middle-income countries including the Philippines.

Historically, the Philippines was one of the countries with generally high vaccine confidence rates (Hartigan-Go, 2019). Following the dengue vaccine controversy in 2017 still and all, confidence levels have dramatically dropped and have impacted succeeding vaccination efforts including Covid-19 vaccination campaign. For that reason, immunization rates dropped and the country saw outbreaks of previously controlled vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles and polio (DOH, 2019). Notwithstanding,  logically speaking, vaccine hesitancy is an emerging term in the socio-medical literature that recognizes that there is a continuum of delay in acceptance and refusal of Covid-19 vaccine, and in fact, challenges the previous understanding of individuals or groups as being anti-vaccine.

People object to getting Covid-19 vaccine because of fear about the possible risks or skepticism about its benefits. Thus, if the proportion of vaccinated people in the community is below the herd immunity threshold, a contagious disease could extend the pandemic. In some measure, social media platforms have become a common source for health information that are often amplified by rumors and conspiracy theories, which were identified as precipitants of vaccine hesitancy,  that are not always based on scientific evidence (De Stefano, 2018). In part, with regards to the objective of the research study in particular,  vaccine hesitancy poses substantial risks, especially in visible minorities, who are disproportionately affected by the pandemic and the reasons for hesitancy in this age group are unclear. Despite the proven efficacy of these vaccines which came from numerous trials and thereby approval of their parents, these age groups still manage to be hesitant and refuse, that was governed by cognitive differences that intervenes the perceived risk in totality. To end this pandemic, there is a need to recognise that the adoption of all the interventions is influenced by individual risk perceptions, and these perceptions are shaped by various sources of information and experiences, which were governed by intrapersonal and structural factors (Schneider, 2020).

Thereafter, a  lot of research studies have arisen to conduct online focus groups and data analyses in order to probe the nature of Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy and its implications. Beaucoup accessible studies were published online, however, these studies centered on gathering information through numerical data and have ignored other ways which data can be analyzed like for a phenomenological analysis via interviews, and one thing however, such qualitative studies focused more on parental apprehensions and decision-making on childhood vaccination. As a matter of fact, thinking dispositions might influence, at the same time, vaccine acceptance, and perceived risks of vaccine-preventable disease, but the implications of the individuals’ cognitive differences for vaccination uptake have seldom been addressed from a sociological standpoint. In addition, published studies on vaccination that utilized various models reported that vaccine intentions and attitudes operate along multiple dimensions, with a series of events influencing decisions related to vaccination. We address this gap by exploring the vaccination narratives of Filipino minority people.

In lieu of inclining to quantitative methodologies and exploration of numeric patterns in addressing the research gap, the current research study will make use of direct interviews to converse with respondents and collect elicit data about a subject to further explore and understand the subject’s perceptions regarding the phenomenon. In addendum, since the research scope focuses on minority discernments which were independent of parental decision-making and apprehensions involvement, thus, in particular, it will be significant and substantial to consider such age group which has not been maneuvered by the previous studies and researchers at all in inclusive understanding.

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