Examination of pre-service science teachers health literacy levels and their attitudes towards vaccine hesitancy

Health literacy (HL) is a cognitive and social competence that must be acquired so that individuals can best benefit from basic health services. Inadequate health literacy of individuals will inevitably lead to a decrease in their quality of life, difficulties in accessing health services, and significant consumption of human and financial resources in the health system. Vaccine hesitancy (VH) refers to the reluctance or refusal to get vaccinated. This can be influenced by various factors, including concerns about vaccine safety, distrust of healthcare systems, misinformation circulating on social media, cultural beliefs, and inadequate health literacy. The aim of this study is to determine the vaccine hesitancy and health literacy levels of pre-service science teachers and to investigate whether there is a relationship between health literacy and attitudes towards vaccine hesitancy. This study is of descriptive type and the sample consisted of 165 students studying at the Education Faculty of Inonu University. The data were collected using the "Information Form", "Health Literacy Scale" and "Vaccine Hesitancy Scale". According to our results, pre-service science teachers' health literacy is at a good level and their vaccine hesitancy scores are at a moderate level. It was observed that there was a low-level negative relationship between health literacy and vaccine hesitancy. This result means that as the health literacy levels of pre-service science teachers increase, their vaccine hesitancy levels decrease. According to the results of our research; it is seen that the health literacy and vaccine hesitancy of pre-service science teachers are not affected by demographic characteristic.