Historical reflections on British vaccination policy. A potential source for inspiration?

Description

Following a highly successful national campaign in the 1940s, UK rates of diphtheria dropped significantly. By the mid-1950s, however, public health officials became worried that parents no longer took the disease seriously. Falling vaccination rates led to fears that the disease might return, leading to renewed focus on how to persuade people to follow public health advice.

Many aspects of this short story are, no doubt, familiar to present day debates around childhood immunisation. This talk uses the reports of London’s Medical Officers of Health from the 1950s to show how similar debates around suboptimal vaccination rates were dealt with before. It describes how parents – often mothers – were blamed for their apathy; how Officers understood themselves to be “victims of their own success”; why geographic variations in uptake mattered; and how authorities realised that they would have to appeal to parents, not just scold them.

Overall, the paper argues that history can offer useful insights to public health researchers and practitioners. Public health professionals have had to work through similar dilemmas in the past. And while the solutions they found were historically specific and cannot be repeated wholesale, the process of debate and the types of problem they worked through can inform how we make decisions in the present.

Moreover, we have a tendency (in both history and in practice) to draw our attention to where things have gone wrong. The more mundane stories of good practice also provide valuable data. Because it is not inevitable that Britain would regularly achieve vaccine uptake rates of over 85% – this had to be built and maintained through enormous effort over several decades. Understanding this adds perspective to present-day issues.

Period	25. Apr 2024
Event title	UK Health Security Agency National Immunisation Network Conference
Event type	Conference
Location	London, United KingdomShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International