When the Minister speaks: Framings of the vaccination hesitant and impact on the propensity to vaccinate girls for HPV

Abstract Vaccination hesitancy is a complex phenomenon influenced by numerous factors, including the communicative messages to which individuals are exposed. Policy-makers, through public communication, might contribute to shape this behaviour. In the study we report the results of an experiment in which respondents were randomly exposed to three different messages about the vaccination against the human papilloma virus (HPV) of girls. The messages were derived from the public statements (2015–2017) of the Italian Minister of Health and contained different frames of the vaccination hesitant (misinformed, antiscientific, or socially dangerous) and correspondingly policy solutions to counteract vaccination hesitancy (information campaigns, compulsory vaccination or compulsory vaccination and sanctions). Results show how framing the vaccination hesitant as antiscientific or socially dangerous, that in turn supports coercive and sanctioning policies, tends to discourage vaccination. These findings alert us to the importance of designing with great care the communication about vaccinations and avoid counterproductive effects.