“I Don’t Understand How These Two Things Go Together”: Toward a Theory of Risk Ecologies

Rhetorical ecological approaches, which posit that messages exist not as isolated entities but instead in the relations of a dynamic network, offer a valuable lens for examining the discursive construction of health-related risk. Drawing from interview data (<i>n</i> = 50) exploring maternal vaccine refusal, this article expands upon these frameworks to trace how intertextual, synchronous messages - particularly those associated with prenatal and infant nutrition - influence mothers' understanding about early childhood vaccine-related risk. Ultimately, I propose the notion of a risk ecology - a network of intertextual messages which shape and constrain sense-making about risk as it emerges within a particular moment and biosocial community.