Reframing Medicine’ s Publics: The Local as a Public of Vaccine Refusal Heidi Y. Lawrence & Bernice L. Hausman & Clare J. Dannenberg Published online: 30 March 2014 # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014 Abstract Although medical and public health practitioners aim for high rates of vaccination, parent vaccination concerns confound doctors and complicate doctor-patient interactions. Medical and public health researchers have studied and attempted to counter antivaccination sentiments, but recommended approaches to dispel vaccination concerns have failed to produce long-lasting effects. We use observations made during a small study in a rural area in a southeastern state to demonstrate how a shift away from analyzing vaccination skepticism as a national issue with a global remedy reveals the nuances in vaccination sentiments based on locality. Instead of seeing antivaccinationists as a distinct public based on statistical common- alities, we argue that examining vaccination beliefs and practices at the local level offers a fuller picture of the contextualized nature of vaccination decisions within the psychosocial spaces of families. A view of vaccination that emphasizes the local public, rather than a globally conceived antivaccination public, enables medical humanists and rhetoricians to offer important considerations for improving communications about vaccinations in clinical settings. Keywords Vaccination . Publics . Local . Vernacular rhetoric . Flu A Merck (2010) brochure, Talking to Parents about Vaccination: Addressing Questions and Concerns, summarizes five main parental concerns about vaccines, including the immuniza- tion schedule and timing, ingredients, overall benefits, quantity, and safety. This brochure, produced and distributed to physicians, offers medical professionals a series of talking points, examples, and facts to counter parental vaccine concerns. Talking to Parents about Vaccination comprises an example of how aggregated studies undertaken by physicians and public health J Med Humanit (2014) 35:111–129 DOI 10.1007/s10912-014-9278-4 H. Y. Lawrence (*) George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA e-mail: hlawren2@gmu.edu B. L. Hausman Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA e-mail: bhausman@vt.edu C. J. Dannenberg University of Alaska Anchorage, Anchorage, AK, USA e-mail: cjdannenberg@uaa.alaska.edu