Investigating how homeopaths and chiropractors navigate patient requests for vaccination information in Ontario, Canada: a qualitative study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Chiropractors and homeopaths are trusted sources of health information for many Canadians, including around vaccination. However, within Ontario, Canada, the College of Chiropractors of Ontario and the College of Homeopaths of Ontario regulations state that vaccines are not within their scope of practice and providers should not express views, treat, or advise patients with respect to vaccination. The aims of the present study were to: (1) describe the attitudes and beliefs regarding vaccination held among participating chiropractors and homeopaths; (2) identify the sources of information about vaccination they trust and use to guide their personal vaccination decisions; and (3) describe how they navigate patient requests for guidance on vaccine decision-making within the current regulatory landscape. METHODS: Semi-structured interviews (N = 16) were conducted between February 2020-March 2021 and explored participants' opinions on vaccination, sources of information they trust and recommend to their patients, and how they navigate vaccine conversations with patients. RESULTS: Providers' personal beliefs regarding vaccination were described as reinforced by social and professional networks, through their personal experiences, and in consultation with clients. Various strategies were used to support patients while abiding by regulations (e.g. referring patients to providers for whom vaccination is within their scope of practice); however, other strategies described (e.g., stating personal beliefs) could be interpreted as a breach of regulation. CONCLUSIONS: This research reinforces existing literature suggesting that patients using chiropractors and homeopaths have questions about vaccination and are looking for trusted information. Public health services should consider engaging with chiropractors and homeopaths to facilitate communication between patients and immunization providers.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".