‘I am still unsure…’ – Spontaneous expressions of vaccine indecision on Mumsnet

Demjen, Zsofia and Brezina, Vaclav and Coltman-Patel, Tara and Dance, William and Gleave, Richard and Hardaker, Claire and Semino, Elena (2025) ‘I am still unsure…’ – Spontaneous expressions of vaccine indecision on Mumsnet. Applied Corpus Linguistics, 5 (1): 100122. ISSN 2666-7991

Abstract

Vaccination programmes in 90% of countries in the world have been affected by ‘vaccine hesitancy’. Childhood vaccinations are particularly important as declining vaccination rates have led to the resurfacing of communicable diseases previously considered eliminated. Therefore, we examine parents’ unelicited expressions of vaccine indecision –dilemmas, hesitations and concerns related to vaccinating– at the point of decision-making. We combine discourse analysis and corpus linguistics (text dispersion keywords and concordancing) to compare 422 Original Posts from the forum of the UK-based parenting website Mumsnet that outline vaccine indecision to vaccination discussions that do not involve indecision. We examine what characterises authentic vaccine indecision in the localised context of Mumsnet. Specifically, which vaccines Mumsnet users are undecided about; what concerns are linked to indecision; and how such concerns are raised in a generally pro-vaccination online space. Our method combines advantages of large datasets with those of nuanced and localised qualitative analysis. The vaccine that consistently concerns parents is MMR. Concerns about other vaccines fluctuate with disease outbreaks and the introduction of new vaccines. The concerns linked to indecision include the mode and timing of vaccinations, particular personal and family circumstances and an unspecific notion of side effects. Mumsnet users invite details about others' personal experiences to fill a need left by widely available general vaccine information. The implication is that health services may need to redirect resources from mass population level campaigns to more personalised approaches for parents who are hesitant about specific vaccines at particular points in time.