With coronavirus vaccines coming online, I thought it about time I put a vaccine video up on the Risk Bites channel on YouTube — after all, this is exactly the type of complex yet important risk and risk communication that the channel was established to address.
I’m expecting plenty of push-back on the video from the anti-vax community, but hopefully there’ll be a greater push-forward from pro-vax, pro-science and pro-public health viewers!
I took a but of a risk here (pun intended) in addressing vaccine hesitancy. But from experience, and drawing on what’s known about effective risk/health communication, this type of approach can be helpful if you’re more interested in reaching people who are seriously interested in useful information, rather than simply preaching to the choir.
This isn’t the first vaccine video to appear on Risk Bites — in the past we’ve addressed HPV vaccines, flu shots, and MMR. But it is especially relevant to the current state of things in the world.
Hopefully this gets some traction — it’s important!