O papel da desinformação na queda das taxas de vacinação no Brasil: uma revisão de escopo

Abstract

INTRODUCTION:The National Immunization Program (PNI) is a successful model in Brazilian public health, responsible for controlling and eradicating several diseases. However, in recent years, there has been a worrying decline in vaccination coverage. The dissemination of fake news is indicated as one of the main factors for this reversal. In view of this, this study investigates the influence of misinformation on the reduction of vaccination uptake in Brazil. OBJECTIVE: To analyze the correlation between the spread of fake news and the decline in vaccination rates in Brazil. METHODOLOGY: Scoping review using databases from Pubmed, Virtual Health Library, Scielo, DataSUS and the Brazilian Ministry of Health. The search strategy involves crossing the descriptors ‘‘’vaccines’’ and ‘’fake News’’ with the Boolean operator AND. RESULTS: After the evaluation and selection stage, 19 scientific articles were selected, including systematic, integrative, and scoping reviews, narrative studies, questionnaires administered to the general public or health professionals, and qualitative and quantitative analyses. DISCUSSION: There is consensus among the articles that the dissemination of fake news is associated with a decrease in vaccination coverage, mainly due to content involving conspiracy theories, deaths, and adverse effects. HPV and yellow fever are among the targets. The study by former researcher Andrew Wakefield, which linked the MMR vaccine to autism and is still used today by anti-vaccine movements, exemplifies how false information can have repercussions for years. During the pandemic, vaccine hesitancy increased as misinformation intensified. The WHO began to adopt the term infodemic to describe this phenomenon. Brazil stood out in the dissemination of fake news, often propagated by public figures, which undermined the population's confidence in vaccines. CONCLUSION: Addressing misinformation is essential to preserve vaccination coverage and prevent the return of diseases that have already been controlled in Brazil, such as yellow fever and HPV. To this end, it is necessary to implement effective strategies to combat the infodemic, a term that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, and vaccine hesitancy, contributing to the success of immunization campaigns.