Laval University inaugurated, on Friday, the very first research chair entirely devoted to the study of vaccine hesitancy in Canada. Led by anthropologist Ève Dubé, she will have the task of understanding how a simple sting can turn, for some, into such a thorny subject.
The chair will mainly focus on the margins of society, where vulnerability to infection is greatest and where resistance to vaccines is often strongest. Immigrants or homeless people, for example, as well as incarcerated or Aboriginal citizens, show greater hesitation in getting vaccinated.
The chair will allow the research team led by Ève Dubé to determine the best ways to reach these populations, in particular by meeting them and studying the reasons underlying their resistance.
“What I want is to understand with empathy. I do not have the objective of convincing anyone, ”assures the holder. She hopes to be able to provide tools so that future vaccination campaigns will better target communities that are less receptive – or less able to obtain adequate information.
“When a citizen speaks neither French nor English, for example, and lives in Quebec, there are barriers to making appointments and accessing public health. We saw it during COVID,” explains Ms. Dubé.
The anthropologist speaks knowingly. During the pandemic, she mapped the behavior of the Quebec population in the face of the health measures put in place by the authorities. Adherence to the mask, distrust of the curfew, reluctance to vaccinate, belief in unfounded theories close to conspiracy: during the crisis, she studied the mood of Quebecers in the face of instructions.
A hesitation that dates from Napoleon
The phenomenon of vaccine hesitation is nothing new: from the first vaccination campaign against smallpox launched by Napoleon in 1905, people castigated the immunization efforts of the authorities. “Resistance to vaccines spans the ages,” confirms Ève Dubé. The speeches that underlie it too. »
Among these: “vaccines are not safe, vaccines cause greater harm than disease, natural immunity provides greater protection than the vaccine,” explains the researcher. A last is added to the list, feeds the theories that flirt with the conspiracy: “pharmaceuticals and the government have hidden interests behind the vaccination campaign. »
Ève Dubé and her team will also look at phenomena that are on the rise throughout the Western world, but relatively emerging in Canada. The political recovery of vaccine opposition, for example, was going on at Uncle Sam but failing to cross the border – until the pandemic hit in the spring of 2020.
“I started working at the INSPQ in 2008 and we watched a lot of what was happening in the United States, where the politicization of vaccination was very present. In Canada, that had never really been the case. Vaccination did not rally political bases, but with the pandemic, opposition to health measures and its flagship measure, vaccination, made it possible to rally anger that was subsequently recovered by politicians. From a public health perspective, this kind of association is never positive. »
Epidemiologist Gaston de Serres hails the contribution that anthropology can make to health. “There was the Ebola crisis in West Africa, he recalls, and until the anthropologists had managed to identify what made the population did not want to participate in the shutdown of this epidemic, things were going around in circles. »
“Maintaining people’s trust, encouraging their support and ensuring vaccination coverage for Quebecers is one of the main issues for us,” says INSPQ CEO Pierre-Gerlier Forest. Vaccination is one of the first public health tools that exist. »
Provided that people are willing to receive the injection. “You may have the best vaccine in the world, if the person does not want to receive it, it does nothing,” adds Dr. De Serres.
The chair will have a total budget of $1.1 million for five years. The funds all come from the public: no pharmaceutical or private company will contribute to the financing of research.