Vaccine Hesitancy, Acceptance, and Anti-Vaccination: Trends and Future Prospects for Public Health

An often-stated public health comment is that vaccination is a victim of its own success. While the scientific and medical consensus on the benefits of vaccination is clear and unambiguous, an increasing number of people are perceiving vaccines as unsafe and unnecessary. The World Health Organization identified the reluctance or refusal to vaccinate despite availability of vaccines as one of the 10 threats to global health in 2019. The negative influence of anti-vaccination movements is often named as a cause of increasing vaccine resistance in the public. In this review, we give an overview of the current literature on the topic, beginning by agreeing on terminology and concepts before looking at potential causes, consequences, and impacts of resistance to vaccination.

Automated summary

Despite the clear benefits of vaccination that are widely acknowledged by the scientific and medical community, an increasing number of people are perceiving vaccines as unsafe and unnecessary. Refusal or hesitancy to vaccinate is identified as one of the ten threats to global health in 2019, with the negative influence of anti-vaccination movements being named as a cause of increasing vaccine resistance in the public.