Vaccine hesitancy, parental concerns, and COVID-19 in a digital leisure context: Implications for out-of-school time

Abstract

Due to the increasing prevalence of parental vaccine hesitancy or refusal, it is important to understand parental motives for vaccine hesitancy. This study examines social media conversations and commentaries regarding concerns about parenting, vaccine hesitancy, and the COVID-19 pandemic within an in-person leisure and recreation context: out-of-school time (OST) programs. A generative, probabilistic Bayesian machine learning model was used to analyze 31,925 tweets and group them into seven categories: Government, Feelings, School, Public Health, Christmas, Risk and Safety, and Families. As a result, recommendations for research and practice are discussed in connection to both OST programs and digital leisure, including a diverse range of vaccine hesitancy motivations related to children and parents, communication management strategies for OST professionals, and the impact of the politization of leisure in a digital leisure context.