Antivaccine belief systems and conspiracy theories in Brazil: An exploratory study on the Covid-19 Pandemic
International Journal of Development Research
Antivaccine belief systems and conspiracy theories in Brazil: An exploratory study on the Covid-19 Pandemic
Received 14th March, 2021; Received in revised form 25th April, 2021; Accepted 17th May, 2021; Published online 30th June, 2021
Copyright © 2021, Luís Antônio Monteiro Campos et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
This paper aims to investigate the beliefs that are present in the population regarding vaccines during the Covid-19 pandemic. It is considered that during this period; besides the negative effects of the virus, the world also suffers from the dissemination of fake news, inducing a part of the population to have an opinion contrary to what has been sought by scientists. Since belief is understood as any statement accepted by at least one person about a social object, the study had the participation of a sample of 200 people to answer the Adherence to Antivaccine Conspiracy Theories Scale, in which the participants presented their beliefs about vaccines through their answers. The results point out that in the sample studied there is no evidence of a significant adherence to antivaccine conspiracy theories, and this can be explained by the level of education of the participants. And it suggests that new studies should be carried out to expand the sample.
