Oxford Events, the new replacement for OxTalks, will launch on 16th March. From now until the launch of Oxford Events, new events cannot be published or edited on OxTalks while all existing records are migrated to the new platform. The existing OxTalks site will remain available to view during this period.
From 16th, Oxford Events will launch on a new website: events.ox.ac.uk, and event submissions will resume. You will need a Halo login to submit events. Full details are available on the Staff Gateway.
Public debates about vaccination often turn on evidence and persuasion, yet beneath these lie deeper differences in how people prefer to make health decisions. This lecture examines how such decision-making preferences—whether one leans toward autonomy or authority, caution or intervention—shape vaccination attitudes and behaviours. Drawing on empirical evidence from large-scale surveys, I show how preferences complement more familiar factors such as risk perception and social norms. Recognizing these patterns helps explain why communication strategies resonate with some audiences but not others. I then turn to the broader implications: when individual preferences aggregate, they influence vaccine uptake and, in turn, the dynamics of epidemics. Linking psychology and epidemiology, the lecture offers a richer view of agency in public health.
