Health literacy, a crucial determinant of vaccination decision-making

Abstract

Our study exploring the influence of health literacy on influenza vaccination among pregnant women in Spain reflected how women with high health literacy were more likely to reject influenza vaccination than those with lower health literacy (Castro-Sánchez et al., 2018). Among the reasons for these women to reject the vaccine were feelings about its need, in isolation and compared with other immunizations, and claims of having received insufficient information. To mitigate such a gap, women with high health literacy would access a greater variety of information sources, including those promoting outlier or fringe opinions (Danchin et al., 2018, Vila-Candel et al., 2016b).