Kent Schwirian, professor of sociology, is coauthor of a new study suggesting that for some people, the resistance to vaccinations may be rooted in a mistrust of the government.

Schwirian and Gustavo Mesch (PhD, sociology, 1993), professor of sociology, University of Haifa in Israel, analyzed Pew Center research from 2009 that asked more than 1,000 Americans about their political views and their willingness to get what was then the new vaccination for the H1N1 virus. The data revealed that only half of respondents overall said that they would get vaccinated. Democrats were much more likely to get vaccinated than either Republicans or independents (both of whom showed 43 percent willingness).

"It was their lack of confidence in the government to deal with the swine flu crisis that was driving their anti-vaccination views," said Schwirian.

The 2009 survey also revealed that nearly 60 percent of people who expressed confidence in the government said that they were willing to get the shot, compared with only 32 percent of those who expressed a lack of confidence in the government.

Schwirian says that he sees the same thing happening now among parents who refuse to vaccinate their children against certain diseases, especially measles. It boils down, he said, to a lack of faith in authority figures.

"There were differences between Democrats, Republicans and independents, but underlying that was the extent to which they had faith in the government to run a good program, which tends to go along with a lot of anger and lack of belief these days about our institutions in science and so on," Schwirian said.

People's levels of media consumption also seemed to have an effect on their willingness to vaccinate, Schwirian explained. When controlling for other factors, the researchers found that people who were more exposed to media were two to three times more likely to get vaccinated.

"People who were willing to take the shot were much more attuned to following... articles on swine flu in the media," Schwirian said. "The whole scale of the swine flu outbreak may have led people to develop a fear of infection... and the media played a big role in that."

The findings are published online in the journal Health Promotion International and will be published in a future print edition.