A new ESRC-funded project based in CASS will apply the methods of corpus linguistics to arrive at new understandings of vaccine hesitancy, which the World Health Organization lists among the top 10 global health challenges, and defines as ‘a delay in acceptance or refusal of vaccines despite availability of vaccination services’.

Vaccine hesitancy is often a consequence of views and attitudes that are formed and exchanged through discourse, for example by reading the news, listening to politicians and interacting on social media. The ‘Quo VaDis’ project (Questioning Vaccination Discourse) will employs corpus linguistic methods to study systematically the ways in which vaccinations are discussed, both currently and historically, in the UK press, UK parliamentary debates, and social media (Twitter, reddit and Mumsnet). The goal is to arrive at a better understanding of pro- and anti-vaccination views, as well as undecided views, and to use the findings to inform future public health campaigns about vaccinations, in collaboration with public health agencies. For more information: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/vaccination-discourse/ Twitter: @vaccine_project