Social Science & Medicine
Volume 153, Pages 1-266 (March 2016)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/02779536/153

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Review Article
Polio vaccine hesitancy in the networks and neighborhoods of Malegaon, India
Original Research Article
Pages 99-106
Jukka-Pekka Onnela, Bruce E. Landon, Anna-Lea Kahn, Danish Ahmed, Harish Verma, A. James O’Malley, Sunil Bahl, Roland W. Sutter, Nicholas A. Christakis
Abstract
Objectives
Eradication and control of childhood diseases through immunization can only work if parents allow their children to be vaccinated. To learn about social network factors associated with polio vaccine hesitancy, we investigated social and spatial clustering of households by their vaccine acceptance status in Malegaon, India, an area known for vaccine refusal and repeated detection of polio cases.
Methods
We interviewed family heads from 2462 households in 25 neighborhoods in July 2012 and constructed social networks based on advice seeking from other households. We restricted our main analyses to surveyed households for which we also had data on whether they accepted the polio vaccine for their eligible children or not.
Results
Data from 2452 households was retained and these households made 2012 nominations to 830 households. Vaccine-refusing households had fewer outgoing ties than vaccine-accepting households. After excluding 24 isolated households, vaccine-refusing households had 189% more nominations to other vaccine-refusing households (93% more in the largest component of the network) compared to vaccine-accepting households, revealing that vaccine-refusing households cluster in the social network. Since roughly half of all ties connect households within neighborhoods, vaccine-refusing clusters lie in spatially localized “pockets”.
Conclusions
The social (and spatial) clustering of vaccine-refusing households could be leveraged to tailor communication strategies to improve vaccine acceptance and community perceptions of immunization programs for polio and other vaccine-preventable diseases.

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Does parental migration really benefit left-behind children? Comparative evidence from Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam
Original Research Article
Pages 230-239
Cuong Viet Nguyen
Abstract
Millions of children are left behind when their parents migrate from home to another place. This study examines whether parental migration can affect health and cognitive ability of left-behind children aged at 5–8 years old in Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam. It uses data on 7725 children in the four countries collected from Young Lives surveys in 2007 and 2009. It finds that although parental migration helps families increase per capita consumption, it does not improve health and cognitive ability of children. The effect of parental migration varies across different countries and different types of migration. In Ethiopia, parental migration does not have a significant effect on children. However, parental migration reduces health outcomes of children in other three countries and decreases cognitive ability test scores in India and Vietnam. The negative effect on children tends to be higher for long-term parental migration than short-term parental migration.
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