Educating people is key to behaviour change

Monday, 27 September 2021

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says alert level 4 could be set aside if vaccination rates got high enough.

OPINION: Vaccination number two went well, and I felt fine afterwards. My wife was knocked for six for a day after her second jab but soon recovered. Our vaccine experience was of a well-run operation with great staff that reminded us of the value of public health. We now join the throng of people wondering why a sizeable though decreasing percentage of the country aren’t already vaccinated.

The experts tell us that we need to get at least a 90 per cent vaccination rate if we are to begin looking less at lockdowns as our main protection against Covid. Getting up to 95 percent would be even better, but are we dreaming?

When analysing our voting turnout, experts determined that there was a small but significant proportion of people who don’t vote. Many are part of a marginalised group, and often victims of growing inequality. One reason given for not voting was because they don’t want to be on the electoral roll as they owe money for fines and don’t want to be tracked down.

There seems to be a similar “hard to reach” group with Covid vaccinations. They are also possibly victims of decades of inequality. Traditional ways of urging them to get vaccinated don’t seem to work, and they are not connected to churches or other social organisations. Yes, there are educated people who don’t want to be vaccinated, but it is a mistake to assume that everyone who is not vaccinated is an anti-vaxxer.

**READ MORE:

* When do we vaccinate the kids?

* Covid-19: Plans to vaccinate, educate and eliminate

“There are various arguments about the best way to get these hard-to-reach people vaccinated. Some are advocating rewards and others, including former Prime Minister John Key, have warned against ‘ruling by fear’.”

* Covid-19: Helping people over the vaccination line is more straightforward than you might think

“But it is true that the more a population understands the science behind a public health initiative then the better the chances of it succeeding,” Dave Armstrong says.

There are various arguments about the best way to get these hard-to-reach people vaccinated. Some are advocating rewards and others, including former Prime Minister John Key, have warned against “ruling by fear”. He’s the guy who used to wear a holographic wristband that is purported to keep your body at optimal “ionic balance” with “free-flowing energy pathways”.

I’m not sure that telling someone their chances of dying due to Covid are way higher if they are not vaccinated is “ruling by fear” – it’s simply good medical advice. But it is true that the more a population understands the science behind a public health initiative then the better the chances of it succeeding.

Dave Armstrong: “it is a mistake to assume that everyone who is not vaccinated is an anti-vaxxer”.

Though education won’t necessarily up our vaccination rate in the short term, this pandemic should make us look very hard at the way we teach maths and science in our schools. The emphasis in many schools is still on getting a smallish group of students to do well.

The bevy of homegrown scientists who’ve excelled during this pandemic is testament to our school and university systems, but not so great is the general level of scientific and mathematical understanding in the general population. Every student who is allowed to drop maths and science early is a potential anti-vaxxer whose first introduction to epidemiology might be a dodgy post on Facebook.

There was a data visualisation posted online recently that compared New Zealand’s delta outbreak with the one in New South Wales. What amazed me was that the number of daily cases in the early days of our outbreak was higher than in New South Wales. But because Jacinda Ardern imposed a level 4 lockdown immediately and New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian did not, our daily cases here have averaged less than twenty in the last week whereas in New South Wales they have frequently hit over 1000.

It was an amazing presentation of data yet if you didn’t understand how exponential growth worked, if you didn’t appreciate the implications of contracting and expanding axes, it would be nowhere near as persuasive. You might be more likely to be sucked in by the reckons of an anti-vax influencer on Instagram.

I look forward to the Government and the community doing whatever it can do to lift vaccination rates in the short term. That might involve rewards, public education campaigns and hopefully little “fearmongering”.

But in the long term, let’s hope we can appeal to science and logic to change public behaviour, because our citizens are more scientifically and mathematically literate. Of course, we still need lots of bright students to excel at the highest level, but let’s educate the rest of the citizenry at the same time.

Let’s also hope that our less able students don’t get prematurely persuaded against taking interesting and relevant maths and science courses – for which Covid provides some fantastic real-life examples – and dumped into “vocational” courses. When you’re 15, learning about the biology of a vaccine and the mathematical features of an epidemic might be way more interesting and important to your future than being trained how to make a great latte.

Making maths and science for everyone might mean providing less difficult content for those who are less able, but it will still have long-term benefits. Having a team of five million working together is vastly preferable to a team of 80 per cent of five million.