VACCINE
HESITANT NARRATIVES: Going
Beyond Misinformation
Katherine Shwetz, PhD, Rice University
Tuesday, March 17, 2026
Abstract: The
large body of research on vaccine hesitancy has shown that the phenomenon is
complex and multi-faceted—it's not just because of an "information
deficit" or a lack of trust. Part of this may be because the vaccine
hesitancy movement excels at telling complex, dynamic stories. These stories
encompass themes that go far beyond medicine: vaccine hesitant stories can
speak to political beliefs, community formation, even a core sense of
individual identity. In this short talk, I will discuss some of the main
"genres" of storytelling used in vaccine hesitancy, using examples
from the Make America Healthy Again movement. Throughout this talk, I'll keep
asking versions of a key question: how do the narrative decisions found in vaccine
hesitancy fuel this phenomenon?
Katherine Shwetz is a
medical humanities scholar who specializes in using literary analysis to
understand disease stories; her work examines how narrative form and medical
beliefs are refracted through narratives about vaccines, contagion, and
disease. Her current research examines the role of literary genre in
anti-vaccination conspiracies, with the goal of using the tools of literary
analysis to sensitively analyze the charged contemporary conversations around
vaccines. Katherine completed her PhD at the University of Toronto and is
currently a lecturer and research scientist at Rice University in Houston,
Texas.
Contact:
dien.ho@mcphs.edu