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Distrust in vaccination is a public health concern. In responding to vaccination distrust, the psychosocial context it occurs in needs to be accounted for. But this psychosocial context is insufficiently understood. We examined how Australians’ attitudes to childhood vaccination relate to broader psychosocial characteristics pertaining to two key areas: health and government.

4370 Australians were surveyed and divided into five vaccine attitude groups. Logistic univariable and multivariable regression analyses were used to compare differences in psychosocial characteristics between these groups.

Multivariate analysis showed that, compared to groups with positive vaccine attitudes, groups with negative attitudes were more informed, engaged and independent health consumers, with greater adherence to complementary medicine, but lower belief in holistic health. They had higher distrust in the …