Vaccine Marketing - Innovation and Marketing in the Pharmaceutical Industry - page 378

(1) Medical concerns refl ect the goal to treat consumers in the medically most
appropriate way. (2) Consumer - related concerns refer to health care professionals'
beliefs about consumers' vaccination beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors, and how to
deal with them. (3) Financial concerns represent health care professionals' beliefs
about the fi nancial outcomes resulting from their vaccination behavior.
Medical Concerns
Understanding the disease which is prevented by a vaccine makes pro-vaccination
behavior more likely. Several studies have reported a positive association between
physicians' perceived knowledge of and experience with a disease and their vacci-
nation intentions and behavior (Chow et al. 2010 ; Kahn et al. 2005 ; Riedesel et al.
2005 ). The perception that the disease represents a signifi cant health problem is also
important. Physicians studied by Humiston et al. ( 2009 ) indicated that the preva-
lence, severity, and limited ability to screen for and treat a disease made vaccination
more appealing. Physician perception of a high burden of rotavirus disease was
associated with very likely adoption of the rotavirus vaccine (Kempe et al. 2007 ).
Not surprisingly, the most important vaccine characteristics to health care profes-
sionals are its effi cacy (e.g., coverage of relevant strains and duration of immunity)
and safety (Humiston et al. 2009 ; Riedesel et al. 2005 ; Zimmerman et al. 1997 ).
A high level of confi dence in prelicensure studies of safety was associated with very
likely adoption of a newly licensed rotavirus vaccine (Kempe et al. 2007 ). Non-
adopters of the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine were signifi cantly more likely than
adopters to report concerns about vaccine safety (Daley et al. 2005 ).
Health care professionals are very attentive to professional vaccination norms.
The belief that the A(H1N1) vaccine would be well accepted by health profession-
als who administer vaccines was a main determinant of Canadian pediatricians'
intention to recommend the vaccine to their patients (Dube et al. 2011 ). In the
United States, recommendations by organizations such as the American Academy
of Family Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC), and the ACIP signifi cantly increase the likelihood that a vac-
cine is prescribed to eligible individuals (Riedesel et al. 2005 ; Kahn et al. 2005 ;
Humiston et al. 2009 ; Millstein 1996 ; Askelson et al. 2010 ).
A health care professional's intended or actual vaccination of herself, a family
member, or friend is associated with her vaccination behavior toward other consum-
ers. In Ishibashi et al.'s ( 2008 ) study, pediatricians' answers to the question “would
you give the HPV vaccine to your own child or the child of a close friend” was
highly associated with whether or not they recommended the HPV vaccine to all
eligible patients (vs. some or none). Parents often ask physicians: “What would you
do if it were your child?” (Humiston et al. 2009 ).