O Papel Das Redes Sociais No Movimento Antivacina: Uma Revisão Sistemática

Abstract

From the development of technology, information started to be distributed in a faster and more practical way, making social media a great source of knowledge and a means increasingly adopted in the search and sharing of health-related news. This fact is no different in the subject “vaccines”, in which social media are being increasingly used both in the dissemination and in the search for information about the efficacy and safety of immunizers, having an interference in users attitudes towards vaccination. In this approach, the study aimed to analyze, through a review, the role of social media and its influence on the growth of the antivaccine movement. The study was based on literature searches in PubMed, Web of Science, and Science Direct databases, using as search descriptors the terms "Antivaxxers", "Antivaccine", and "Social media". To select the articles, the following inclusion criteria were used: articles available for free reading, without time restrictions, written in English, and that were related in some way to the topic in question. In the end, 50 articles were used for the review, which showed that the main arguments used by the antivaccine groups are: questioning the safety and efficacy of vaccines, conspiracy theories, political issues, religious issues, side effects, civil liberty, and

defense of natural immunization. They also found that the number of anti-vaccine and pro- vaccine people varies between social networks and where they are located, but that anti-vaccine

people are always more engaged and have a greater reach. Another factor observed was that the negative comments regarding vaccines were slowly growing on social networks, peaking when new vaccines were launched on the market, reaching their peak with the COVID-19 pandemic, when vaccines against the disease were created due to worldwide urgency. With this study we can suggest that social networks have a preponderant role for the performance of the antivaccine movement, being one of the main means of dissemination of their arguments, in which they can negatively influence the opinion of about vaccination.