O "voluntório", o resistente e o libertário: a escuta de sentidos da hesitação vacinal na tensão entre comunicação e saúde

Abstract

Brazil faces difficulties in restoring high vaccination coverage, which increases the risk of reintroducing eradicated or controlled diseases. This qualitative study situates vaccine hesitancy as a public health problem, focusing on its relation to communication. The objective is to map and understand the discourses of hesitant individuals, analyzing how they appropriate, reproduce, or transform anti-vaccine narratives. The research used discursive interviews, encouraging spontaneous narratives, conducted with residents of the Zona da Mata region of Minas Gerais who express hesitancy regarding the vaccines of the National Immunization Program (PNI). The analysis of the empirical material was conducted using Franco-Brazilian Discourse Analysis (Pêcheux/Orlandi), which is appropriate for investigating the meanings produced and circulated about vaccination. The results revealed that, despite the consolidated discursive memory about the importance of vaccines, the interviewees confronted diverse meanings that escape generalization, which are related to the determinants of vaccine hesitancy proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO). The mapping of the statements resulted in the identification of the political philosophy of Libertarianism as an important matrix of meaning for vaccination hesitancy, in addition to demonstrating the partial subjugation to the Biomedical discourse, which the subjects reinterpreted. It is concluded that actions to promote the National Immunization Program (PNI) must consider the constitution and circulation of these meanings to strengthen bonds with the population. The research hopes to contribute to rethinking communication practices in health, aiming to regain broad and sustained adherence to the vaccination schedule.