title: Livestock vaccine adoption among poor farmers in Bolivia: remembering innovation diffusion theory.
abstract: The paper explores the low uptake of livestock vaccination among poor farming communities in Bolivia utilising core elements of the original innovation diffusion theory. Contrary to the recent literature, we found that vaccination behaviour was strongly linked to social and cultural, rather than economic, drivers. While membership in a group increased uptake, the 'hot' and 'cold' distinctions which dictate health versus illness within Andean cosmology also played a role, with vaccination viewed as a means of addressing underlying imbalances. We concluded that uptake of livestock vaccination was unlikely to improve without knowledge transfer that acknowledges local epistemologies for livestock disease.
authors.affiliation: Livestock Development Group, School of Agriculture, Policy and Development, University of Reading, Reading RG6 6AT, UK. c.l.heffernan@reading.ac.uk
authors.forename: Claire
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Heffernan
authors.forename: Kim
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Thomson
authors.forename: Louise
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Nielsen
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000829:Animals, Domestic / Q000276:immunology*; D001838:Bolivia; D004059:Diffusion of Innovation; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D012424:Rural Population; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014612:Vaccines / Q000276:immunology*
chemical_list: D014612:Vaccines