Beyond biomedical interventions: social vaccinology as a framework for vaccination policy and public governance

Despite the extraordinary scientific success of vaccines, vaccination policy continues to struggle to sustain public trust, legitimacy, and consistent uptake in many contemporary societies. Policy responses to these challenges frequently prioritize communication strategies, behavioral interventions, or stronger implementation, implicitly treating vaccination as a primarily biomedical intervention whose effectiveness depends on evidence dissemination and administrative execution. This article argues that such approaches overlook a structural limitation within vaccinology itself: the lack of an explicit framework to address vaccination as a social process embedded in public life. We propose a tripartite model distinguishing basic vaccinology, programmatic vaccinology, and social vaccinology. Social vaccinology is defined as the domain concerned with individual and collective behaviors arising from the interaction between policy design, social influences, ethical considerations, institutional trust, and public discourse. Recognizing social vaccinology does not replace scientific evidence or programmatic delivery but complements them by clarifying the social conditions under which vaccination policies succeed or fail. By reframing vaccination as both a technical and a governance challenge, this article offers a conceptual framework to support more socially robust and sustainable vaccination policies.