ReviewArchives of disease in childhood2002
Antivaccination activists on the world wide web.
Review in Archives of disease in childhood, 2002. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 78 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
78 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- A taxonomy of anti-vaccination arguments from a systematic literature review and text modelling.Nature human behaviour · 2023Pooled it
- Characteristics of Antivaccine Messages on Social Media: Systematic Review.Journal of medical Internet research · 2021Pooled it
- Under-vaccinated groups in Europe and their beliefs, attitudes and reasons for non-vaccination; two systematic reviews.BMC public health · 2018Pooled it
- Behavioural change models for infectious disease transmission: a systematic review (2010-2015).Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2016Pooled it
- The Role of Influencers and Echo Chambers in the Diffusion of Vaccine Misinformation: Opinion Mining in a Taiwanese Online Community.JMIR infodemiology · 2025Article
- Use of narratives to enhance childhood vaccine acceptance: Results of an online experiment among Canadian parents.Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics · 2024Article
- Review
- Modelling and predicting online vaccination views using bow-tie decomposition.Royal Society open science · 2024Article
- Vaccine refusal in pregnant women in Kahramanmaraş: a community-based study from Türkiye.PeerJ · 2024Article
- An Updated Account on Parents' Use of and Attitudes Towards Time-Out.Child psychiatry and human development · 2023Article
- Prepandemic Antivaccination Websites' COVID-19 Vaccine Behavior: Content Analysis of Archived Websites.JMIR formative research · 2023Article
- Tracking the structure and sentiment of vaccination discussions on Mumsnet.Social network analysis and mining · 2023Article
- Knowledge and attitude on infant vaccination among university staff in Malaysian public university.Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics · 2022Article
- Uptake of Human Papillomavirus Vaccination by HIV Status and HIV Pre-exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) Care Engagement Among Young Sexual Minority Men 17-24 Years Old in the USA.Sexuality research & social policy : journal of NSRC : SR & SP · 2022Article
- Association between COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and trust in the medical profession and public health officials.Preventive medicine · 2022Article
- Interconnectedness and (in)coherence as a signature of conspiracy worldviews.Science advances · 2022Article
- Attitudes, Perceptions and Practices of Influenza Vaccination in the Adult Population: Results of a Cross-Sectional Survey in Spain.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- COVID-19 Vaccination Intent and Belief that Vaccination Will End the Pandemic.Emerging infectious diseases · 2022Article
- The Vaccine-Hesitant Moment.The New England journal of medicine · 2022Review
- Social media and attitudes towards a COVID-19 vaccination: A systematic review of the literature.EClinicalMedicine · 2022Article
18 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
aimsTo determine the likelihood of finding an antivaccination site on the world wide web and to characterise their explicit claims and rhetorical appeals.
methodsUsing "vaccination" and "immunisation", examining the first 10 sites displayed on seven leading search engines. Detailed examination of content of 100 antivaccination sites found on Google.
results43% of websites were antivaccination (all of the first 10 on Google). Main rhetorical appeals involve themes of the scientific veracity of antivaccination argument; rapport with parents seeking to protect their children from harm; and alleged collusion between doctors, the pharmaceutical industry, and government to deny vaccine harm.
conclusionsThere is a high probability that parents will encounter elaborate antivaccination material on the world wide web. Factual refutational strategies alone are unlikely to counter the highly rhetorical appeals that shape these sites.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.