The UN Sustainability Development Goals informed this project. The focus was on Goal 3: Good Health and Wellbeing.
This goal of this project was to better understand anti-vaccination attitudes in the upstate New York Community of New Paltz and more widely in the United States. I wanted to find out what the disconnects were with how vaccine proponents convey the benefits and what anti-vaccination proponents see as risks. Talking with both experts and looking at anti-vaccination blogs online revealed a huge gulf between these groups and I hope that moving forward I will have an opportunity to work to improve scientific literacy and work to promote a healthier and truthful environment online that gives people accessibility to accurate information and guidance.
The first part of the process that I undertook was that I spoke to two local pharmacists about their perspective on the issue of anti-vaccination.
The next part of the project that I undertook was to look more closely at particular areas of interest and write about important elements of academic articles. At the time I was looking at discrepancies in rural versus urban healthcare, distrust in science, gender bias in healthcare, and anti-vaccination or delayed vaccination attitudes.
The next part of the project that I created was an infographic showing the different strategies used in pharmacies to convince people to get vaccines. I used quotes from local promotional materials in New Paltz, NY.
Next I did two image searches for "anti vaccine" on both Yahoo and Google. From there I created a spreadsheet comparing different aspects of the results.
After tabulating the data I created graphs comparing the two search engines and showing where images were sourced from and the attitudes associated with the images.
Finally, I created a survey using Survey Monkey that asked my peers in the Graphic Design BFA program about their background and attitude toward vaccines.
