Vaccinate hesitancy is listed by the World Health Organization as one of the top ten threats to health.
Hastings-Prince Edward Public Health says that 63-percent of Canadian parents admit to looking for immunization information online, with half of them doing a quick Google search. “if anyone has questions of vaccines they shouldn’t be asking Google, they should be asking their doctor,” Public Health’s Medical Officer of Health Piotr O’Glaza says. He adds that the information you get online may not always be factual.
The Ontario Medical Association teamed up with other Public Health units to announce the creation of a website to provide the correct information on vaccines.
“We want to make sure that when parents are making a decision on vaccinations they have reliable information,” O’Glaza says. That’s why he tries to have conversations with parents who may be against getting their child vaccinated to try and understand where they’re coming from, while also properly explaining the benefit of vaccines to them. “If someone has concerns talk to their doctor,” he reiterates.
While some parents might not get their child vaccinated due to concerns with its ingredients, O’Glaza understands that there may be other reasons for a parent not keeping their kid’s shots up-to-date. He says it could be as simple as not having access to immunizations. O’Glaza says Public Health does their best to make their clinics available to everyone with ones being done in schools as well as throughout the community.