Healthy bodies, toxic medicines: college students and the rhetorics of flu vaccination release_yqtkxls2wzfhxpeycnmrjlj22m

by Heidi Y Lawrence

Published in The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine.

2014   Volume 87, Issue 4, p423-37

Abstract

This article examines flu vaccination beliefs and practices produced during a survey of undergraduate students in Spring 2012 (IRB#10-732). This research uses the methods of rhetorical analysis - or the study of persuasive features and arguments used in language - to examine statements respondents made regarding flu and flu vaccine. In these responses, students generated unique categories of arguments about the perceived dangers of flu vaccination, including the assertion that vaccines cause disease (including illnesses and conditions other than flu), that vaccines are toxic medicines, and that vaccines carry unknown, population-wide risks that are inadequately acknowledged. This study provides insight into vaccination beliefs and rationales among a population at risk of flu (college students) and suggests that further study of this population may yield important keys to addressing flu vaccine concerns as expressed by college students. Rhetorical analysis also offers a useful set of methods to understanding vaccination beliefs and practices, adding to existing methods of study and analysis of vaccination practices and beliefs in medicine and public health.
In text/plain format

Archived Files and Locations

application/pdf  178.1 kB
file_andyvuqfhvc33b3ym563mws67u
europepmc.org (repository)
web.archive.org (webarchive)
Read Archived PDF
Preserved and Accessible
Type  article-journal
Stage   published
Date   2014-12-12
Language   en ?
PubMed  25506277
PMC  PMC4257030
Journal Metadata
Open Access Publication
Not in DOAJ
In ISSN ROAD
In Keepers Registry
ISSN-L:  0044-0086
Work Entity
access all versions, variants, and formats of this works (eg, pre-prints)
Catalog Record
Revision: 5f108985-cc73-4446-b10c-b4951c45a27d
API URL: JSON