Confederation of Meningitis Organisations (CoMO) Survey on exploring how to communicate with adolescents in Europe about vaccines

Online survey of 14 to 18 year olds in six European countries on their perceptions and understanding of vaccines, specifically meningitis, their preferred sources of information and frequency of media usage.

Seven in ten (69%) young people agree they are not afraid of having a vaccination. However, a third (32%) still think vaccines can be dangerous – rising to two in five (41%) in France.

Three quarters (75%) of young people say they have heard of meningitis but only a third (34%) report being been vaccinated against it, dropping to just one in ten in Sweden (10%) and Poland (12%).

Young people are connected and engaged – more than nine in ten browse the internet, YouTube or watch television every week (94-98%) and a majority (61%) say they have come across information or an advert for a charity in the past week.

However, the most common ways to see or hear information about vaccines are through parents or guardians (56%), a doctor (47%) or schools or teachers (30%).

Positively, only 9% of young people say they don’t want to receive information about vaccines – around two in five express a preference for receiving information through friends or family (43%), a talk at school or university (41%) and teachers at school or university (39%) and around a fifth through a website (21%) or social media (17%).

Date Published: 26th April 2017

Categories: Europe | Health | Public and communities

Client: CoMO Meningitis

Methodology

ComRes interviewed 3,026 14 to 18 year olds online across six countries (UK, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Poland) between 24th March and 3rd April 2017. Data were weighted to be demographically representative of age and gender for 14-18 year olds in each country, as well as by population of 14-18 year olds in each country relative to one another.