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The swine flu vaccine, public attitudes, and researcher interpretations: a systematic review of qualitative research

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Health Services Research, June 2016
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  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (86th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (87th percentile)

Mentioned by

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1 news outlet
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8 X users

Citations

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44 Dimensions

Readers on

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116 Mendeley
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Title
The swine flu vaccine, public attitudes, and researcher interpretations: a systematic review of qualitative research
Published in
BMC Health Services Research, June 2016
DOI 10.1186/s12913-016-1466-7
Pubmed ID
Authors

Benedicte Carlsen, Claire Glenton

Abstract

During pandemics, health authorities may be uncertain about the spread and severity of the disease and the effectiveness and safety of available interventions. This was the case during the swine flu (H1N1) pandemic of 2009-2010, and governments were forced to make decisions despite these uncertainties. While many countries chose to implement wide scale vaccination programmes, few accomplished their vaccination goals. Many research studies aiming to explore barriers and facilitators to vaccine uptake have been conducted in the aftermath of the pandemic, including several qualitative studies. 1. To explore public attitudes to the swine flu vaccine in different countries through a review of qualitative primary studies. 2. To describe and discuss the implications drawn by the primary study authors. Systematic review of qualitative research studies, using a broadly comparative cross case-study approach. Study quality was appraised using an adaptation of the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) quality assessment tool. The review indicates that the public had varying opinions about disease risk and prevalence and had concerns about vaccine safety. Most primary study authors concluded that participants were uninformed, and that more information about the disease and the vaccine would have led to an increase in vaccine uptake. We find these conclusions problematic. We suggest instead that people's questions and concerns were legitimate given the uncertainties of the situation at the time and the fact that the authorities did not have the necessary information to convince the public. Our quality assessment of the included studies points to a lack of reflexivity and a lack of information about study context. We suggest that these study weaknesses are tied to primary study authors' lack of acknowledgement of the uncertainties surrounding the disease and the vaccine. While primary study authors suggest that authorities could increase vaccine uptake through increased information, we suggest instead that health authorities should be more transparent in their information and decision-making processes in future pandemic situations.

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X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 8 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 116 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 116 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 20 17%
Student > Bachelor 19 16%
Researcher 14 12%
Student > Ph. D. Student 8 7%
Other 5 4%
Other 17 15%
Unknown 33 28%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 19 16%
Nursing and Health Professions 17 15%
Social Sciences 9 8%
Psychology 7 6%
Immunology and Microbiology 5 4%
Other 23 20%
Unknown 36 31%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 13. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 26 December 2023.
All research outputs
#2,752,774
of 25,028,065 outputs
Outputs from BMC Health Services Research
#1,182
of 8,494 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#48,042
of 360,987 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Health Services Research
#20
of 153 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,028,065 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 88th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 8,494 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 8.2. This one has done well, scoring higher than 86% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 360,987 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 86% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 153 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 87% of its contemporaries.