“Der Standard” published an article including an interview with Katharina T. Paul and Nora Hansl on parental decision-making regarding childhood vaccination. Among other things, they discussed different reasonings informing vaccination decisions and vaccine-hesitancy as a challenge for Austrian healthcare.

The newspaper article was published on May 16, 2025. An online version can be found here: https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000269763/impfentscheidung-von-eltern-zwischen-wissen-zweifel-und-vertrauen

The “Kurier” published an article about the VALUE VACC project. It includes an interview with Katharina T. Paul and also gives a brief insight into Nora Hansl’s research on decision-making practices of parents regarding childhood vaccination in Austria.

The newspaper article was published on April 26, 2025. An online version can be found here: https://kurier.at/wissen/wien-wills-wissen/mehr-klarheit-beim-thema-impfen/403036430

Nora Hansl presented her recent work on paediatricians as street-level bureaucrats at the 21^st annual working conference of the Netherlands Institute of Governance. This vibrant research network brings together public administration and political science scholars from more than 10 universities. The conference, held on the beautiful campus of Ghent University, was an exciting opportunity to share and discuss Nora’s research on the governance of childhood vaccination.

The “Kronen Zeitung”, a major Austrian media outlet, published an article on a presentation given by Katharina T. Paul in November at the conference “Corona verstehen. Take 5: Was bleibt von Corona” (Innsbruck, Austria). Amongst others things, she presented empirical findings (jointly with Nora Hansl) on how paediatricians and parents perceive of mandatory vaccination in Austria.

The newspaper article was published on January 4, 2025. An online version can be found here: https://www.krone.at/3642891

As part of the Public Health curriculum at the Medical University of Vienna, Anna Pichelstorfer and Nora Hansl were invited to present the VALUE-VACC project. In their seminar ‘The societal significance of vaccination and the importance of vaccination communication’, they gave an overview of social science research on vaccination, relevant methods for studying vaccine uptake, and related policy questions in Austria. In the practical part of the seminar, medical students had the opportunity to test communication tools in concrete empirical scenarios. Nora’s and Anna’s experiences and science communication skills made for a great combination!

After wrapping up her political science degree in the summer, Paula-Marie Pucker left our team and now fully concentrates on her journalistic work. She was a student assistant for VALUE-VACC from July 2023 to September 2024 and took care of finances and administrative tasks of the research group. On top of that, she participated in the team’s research activities helping with literature research and engaging in data analysis.

Paula, we are very sad to see you leave our team, but we are equally happy to be able to read, listen, and watch your future work in the media. We wish you all the best and hope you have a great start!

The VALUE VACC-Team has published a new article in “Social Science & Medicine”.

“I can’t see the forest for the ticks, uhm, trees …”: The role of online forums in parents’ vaccination trajectories

Abstract: When it comes to health-related information-seeking behavior, online communities play a key role for some groups, such as parents. With a case study of online communities in a loosely organized vaccination system, that of Austria, we study how parents make use of a prominent online forum (parents.at) in their vaccination trajectories and situate this analysis in its socio-political context. Based on inductive qualitative analysis of relevant threads (n = 27), we find that parents use forums in three ways: First, the forum serves as a platform through which parents seek orientation in a loosely organized and fragmented vaccination system. Second, the forum offers space for sharing, collecting, and evaluating different forms of expertise. In doing so, parents carve out a space in which they can comfortably put lay expertise and credentialed expertise on a par, particularly in their advice to peers. Third, and on that basis, parents use the forum for deliberating on future or past vaccination-related decisions. In doing so, they frequently draw on idiosyncratic notions of individual risks and benefits. These three practices enable parents to accumulate and share what we label navigational capital. We conclude that parents resort to online spaces both out of a subjective need and, for some, as a result of a dysfunction of the national childhood vaccination program which offers little orientation for parents.

To the publication: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.117183

Focusing on the question “Warum Impfen?/ Why vaccinate?” our team started numerous conversations about experiences on vaccination during the science communication event “Lange Nacht der Forschung”. Several hundred people were interested in our research. Thank you to everyone who joined us! We had a great time and are looking forward to next year’s LNF!

VALUE VACC will take part in this year’s “Lange Nacht der Forschung”. This science communication event takes place all over Austria. We will present our project in the Main Ceremonial Hall of University of Vienna (Universitätsring 1, 1010 Vienna). We do not offer vaccines, but chats about our research, fun games, and opportunities for participating in our research.

Further information: https://langenachtderforschung.at/station/3469

VALUE-VACC is now in in its second year – and we are currently a team of six!

In February, we took some time to reflect on our progress and ongoing research. For the multidisciplinary VALUE-VACC team, regular review meetings where we can exchange ideas, results and future collaborations are essential. The highlight of our first day was the release of our very own VALUE-VACC merch: a branded mug!

On the second day of our retreat, we focused on dissemination, collaborations and future paper projects. It was all about making commitments and brainstorming in which directions VALUE-VACC will develop.

We do not yet want to reveal too much but watch this space for news, events, and upcoming publications!