Influencer doctors have training to encourage vaccination – 10/17/2023 – Health

Five years ago, pediatric specialist Ricardo Fonseca swapped his white coat for one printed with a superhero costume and started using social media to disseminate useful information about children’s health.

With 86 thousand followers and a large number of parents and children, the Super-Pediatrician was one of 18 digital influencer doctors invited and certified by the SBP (Brazilian Society of Pediatrics) to combat fake news about immunization.

The influencers selected for the one-day training held last week have a combined audience of around 20 million people and are one of the entity’s efforts to recreate important bonds, especially with parents.

For Super-Pediatrician, the entity’s initiative innovates by endorsing professionals who disseminate quality information, valuing good scientific evidence.

“This chain of good is fundamental for children’s health, providing parents and caregivers with knowledge to make a difference in society”, he comments.

Pediatrician and infectious disease specialist Renato Kfouri, president of the SBP Immunization Department and one of the project’s creators, says that the entity has been combating misinformation, but it is essential to expand the reach of the message with new ways to enlighten the public about fake news linked to vaccines —especially in the media where they are most widespread, such as social networks.

“Vaccine hesitancy is a new topic for us pediatricians, we have never had to face the challenge of convincing parents to vaccinate their children. It was so obvious, so natural in the past and, suddenly, today we find ourselves forced to learn about this issue” , evaluates.

The strategy now, says Kfouri, needs to include educating the population, but also restoring the trust of child caregivers in medicine and pediatrics.

“How do we face parents who are hesitant, who ask if it is necessary, if it is necessary, if vaccines are safe? Our first reaction is confrontation, it is to say: ‘of course it is necessary’. [Mas temos que] understand that these parents are insecure, no one wants harm from their children, they need to be welcomed”, says Kfouri.

The training to deal with the subject was developed in partnership with the Instituto Questão de Ciência and initially applied to all presidents of local societies affiliated with the SBP.

“We held a great event. But I realized that this was still insufficient, we needed not only to train pediatricians in this new scenario and for these pediatricians to be multipliers in their states, but to speak more directly to the SBP and the population.”

It was then that the proposal came up to expand the “More than a guess” campaign, already present on the SBP website and channels, to specialist doctors with large audiences on their social networks.

“We have pediatricians with 500 thousand, 800 thousand followers, so we brought together some of these important influencers in São Paulo. Not all of these pediatricians come from academia, they are professors, but they are great communicators”, says the infectious disease specialist.

Throughout the day, the training focused on topics such as communication ethics, the new CFM (Federal Council of Medicine) medical advertising law and, of course, the country’s vaccination situation. In the afternoon, professionals received media training with mock interviews.

“I was present together with Dr. Melissa Palmieri, from the Department of Immunizations, and it was wonderful. Qualifying these pediatricians, accrediting them as spokespersons for society to talk to families, offering them content, all the documents produced by SBP , I believe it is an important way to provide quality information to families”, reports Kfouri

The infectious disease specialist also highlights the importance of the leading role of the qualified pediatrician to provide information.

“It was a first meeting and a great success, the expectation is that we can not only keep these influential pediatricians with this partnership, but add more, hold new events, make this a more consistent, more programmed activity. The idea is to bring people from all regions of the country”, plans Kfouri.