Pre-service teachers’ attitudes towards vaccination before and after targeted teaching interventions

Despite recent proof on the usefulness of vaccination during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, global vaccine hesitancy persists, driven by emotional biases and selective information processing. Education can help students acquire the necessary knowledge, critical thinking, as well as improve their decision-making skills. Teachers can play a pivotal role in health promotion and vaccination acceptance, and their training in this domain is essential. Vaccine education through school-based programs for children and adolescents could serve as an effective means to reduce vaccine hesitancy in the broader population. This quantitative study examines Greek pre-service teachers’ vaccination attitudes in general, and in certain aspects of vaccine acceptance (VA; vaccine safety, effectiveness and necessity, vaccination program, affect towards vaccination, mandatoriness) and their potential reconsideration after targeted educational interventions focusing on the importance of vaccines in the past and present and considering cognitive biases. Initial attitudes were positive, and educational interventions significantly improved VA. Pre-service teachers mainly recognised the effectiveness and necessity of vaccines but were less confident about vaccine safety. The lowest acceptance was noticed in the legitimacy of authorities mandating vaccination. The findings underscore the importance of integrating comprehensive, bias-aware vaccination education early in curricula, to enhance public awareness and encounter misinformation effectively.