Booth Id:
BEHA004
Category:
Behavioral and Social Sciences
Year:
2017
Finalist Names:
McNair, Olivia (School: II Liceum Ogolnoksztalcace im. Generalowej Zamoyskiej i Heleny Modrzejewskiej w Poznaniu)
Abstract:
There has been a lot of controversy over whether vaccines are safe or cause cognitive disorders like autism. We spend lots of money and time on developing vaccines to fight contagious pathogens. The CDC says that the effectiveness of vaccines is affected by whether the pathogens in the vaccines is a match with the pathogen that is spreading around. So some years you might have a vaccine that works really well, and other years you might have one that doesn't work at all. The question this project attempted to answer is: Does the general public think the benefits of vaccines outway the risks?
In this project a survey was put out on the internet asking people a series of questions pertaining to their views on vaccines. It was hypothesized that the older population would be more supportive of the vaccines than the younger population because they had to deal with these sicknesses when they were younger whereas the younger population never had to deal with such diseases. It was also hypothesized that the people with a higher level of education would be more supportive of vaccines because they are less prone to believing whatever they hear and more likely to formulate their own ideas. And finally it was hypothesized that republicans will be less trusting of vaccines because they tend to be more conservative in their viewpoints.
The hypothesis about the older population was supported by the survey. The hypothesis about level of education was supported by the survey. And finally the hypothesis about the republicans was not supported by the data.