Measles Vaccination The World Health Organization estimates that around 17 million lives have been saved since 2000 as a result of childhood vaccination. Although there are rare serious consequences...

Measles Vaccination

The World Health Organization estimates that around 17 million lives have been saved since 2000 as a result of childhood vaccination. Although there are rare serious consequences of vaccination, the benefits of vaccination substantially outweigh the harms. Most parents are accepting of the recommendation to vaccinate their children against measles, but some have concerns and are not accepting. In these cases, patient decision aids can be a useful way to involve parents in decisions through clarifying what's important to them and providing balanced information about the consequences of vaccinating or not vaccinating. In fact, a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of a patient decision aid with parents who were vaccine-hesitant showed that those receiving the decision aid were more likely to vaccinate their children than those who received a government-developed leaflet (Shourie et al., 2013). The web-based tool was also likely to be cost effective (Tubeuf et al., 2014).