Predict vaccine coverage by modelling

Researchers in Canada are combining mathematics with “social learning” to predict how epidemics are affected by fears – usually unfounded – that a vaccine can harm, so as to improve the design of vaccination campaigns. Social learning – how behaviours are learnt and decisions are made in group settings – has long been examined in economics and now, increasingly, in healthcare. “We’re giving 110-120 million courses of vaccine out every year around the globe, but how much do we know about why people take these up?” asked John Edmunds, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and author of a forthcoming book on modelling and disease control. “How much do we invest in understanding what drives mothers to accept these vaccines, and sometimes not to?” Payoffs and penalties Chris Bauch and colleagues at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, set out to create a mathematical model that would show how...