Date of Award

2021

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Dean, Erin

Area of Concentration

Anthropology

Abstract

Vaccination is a major public health accomplishment that acts to protect citizens, but it also acts as an exertion of state control that citizens may resist for multiple reasons. My thesis explores the intersections between religion and vaccination with a focus on religiously motivated vaccine hesitant decision making. I conducted a general population survey and a series of interviews with vaccine hesitant individuals. The goal of the interviews was to understand motivations around vaccine decision making, particularly religious motivations. The survey outcomes were focused on religion’s impact on vaccination, mass vaccination opinions, and new vaccine decisions making. My findings suggest that vaccine hesitant individuals’ concerns about state control and experience with doctors’ reactions pushed them further into vaccine refusal and left them feeling excluded from medical care.

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