{"id":9696,"date":"2025-06-11T09:11:31","date_gmt":"2025-06-11T14:11:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=9696"},"modified":"2025-06-11T09:11:34","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T14:11:34","slug":"game-theory-explains-why-reasonable-parents-make-vaccine-choices-that-fuel-outbreaks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2025\/06\/11\/game-theory-explains-why-reasonable-parents-make-vaccine-choices-that-fuel-outbreaks\/","title":{"rendered":"Game theory explains why reasonable parents make vaccine choices that fuel\u00a0outbreaks"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/game-theory-explains-why-reasonable-parents-make-vaccine-choices-that-fuel-outbreaks-256975\">The Conversation<\/a> When outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles occur despite&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/measles-is-one-of-the-deadliest-and-most-contagious-infectious-diseases-and-one-of-the-most-easily-preventable-224493\">highly effective vaccines being available<\/a>, it\u2019s easy to conclude that parents who don\u2019t vaccinate their children are misguided, selfish or have fallen prey to misinformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As professors with expertise in&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/scholar.google.com\/citations?user=MPOYrOkAAAAJ&amp;hl=en\">vaccine policy<\/a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/publichealth.gwu.edu\/departments\/health-policy-and-management\/avi-dor\">health economics<\/a>, we argue that the decision not to vaccinate isn\u2019t simply about&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/vaccines11050926\">misinformation<\/a>&nbsp;or hesitancy. In our view, it involves&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/game-theory\/\">game theory<\/a>, a mathematical framework that helps explain how reasonable people can make choices that collectively lead to outcomes that endanger them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Game theory reveals that vaccine hesitancy is not a moral failure, but simply the predictable outcome of a system in which individual and collective incentives aren\u2019t properly aligned.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Conversation When outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles occur despite&nbsp;highly effective vaccines being available, it\u2019s easy to conclude that parents who don\u2019t vaccinate their children are misguided, selfish or have fallen prey to misinformation. As professors with expertise in&nbsp;vaccine policy&nbsp;and&nbsp;health economics, we argue that the decision not to vaccinate isn\u2019t simply about&nbsp;misinformation&nbsp;or hesitancy. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vaccine-headlines"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9696"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9697,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9696\/revisions\/9697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}