JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Designing online informational materials regarding the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine has become a challenge for designers and decision-makers in the health authorities due to the scientific and public controversy regarding the vaccine's safety and effectiveness as well as the sexual and moral concerns related to the vaccine.

Objective:

To investigate how cultural sensitivity is articulated in the informational materials explaining the HPV vaccine that are posted online on the websites of the Israeli health authorities. In addition, the study strives to examine the effect of transparency on the expression of cultural sensitivity in the informational materials.

Methods:

Quantitative and qualitative content analysis of the texts of explanatory informational materials published on the online Arabic and Hebrew websites of the Israel Ministry of Health and the Clalit HMO.

Results:

The findings reveal differences in the dimensions of cultural sensitivity (based on Resnicow's cultural sensitivity model) between the informational materials targeting the majority Jewish population and those targeting the minority Arab population. Indeed, the research findings point to a paradox. On the one hand, the materials appealing to the conservative Arab population exhibited cultural sensitivity in that the sexual context of the vaccine was missing. On the other hand, analysis of Resnicow's deep dimensions shows that disregarding the sexual context does not allow the relevant target audience to reflect on the barriers and concerns. In addition, the way the information was provided exhibited a lack of transparency regarding the cultural sensitivity dimensions (surface and deep).

Conclusions:

The public health authorities have two main objectives in the context of vaccinations. One is to raise the vaccination rates and the other is to provide full and culturally sensitive information to give the public the tools to make intelligent decisions. The findings of this study indicated that despite the high uptake rate for HPV vaccination in the Arab population, the health authorities did not exercise full transparency and cultural sensitivity in transmitting the association between engaging in sexual relations and necessity of the vaccination. Thus, the major challenge for the health authorities is to find ways to implement the objective of communicating information about the vaccination in a way that is transparent and culturally sensitive, even if this raises questions and fears among the public deriving from their culture.