| Abstract |
BACKGROUND: The vaccination coverage of children in any given country reflects on the function and adequacy of the national Public Health services. The vaccination coverage has been evaluated in past years in several studies in Greece, all of which have demonstrated that the vaccination coverage in our country is suboptimal and inferior to the recommendations set by the World Health Organization (WHO). Consequently, better understanding of the social and demographic factors that impede on optimal vaccination coverage of children is essential with an aim to improve delivery of vaccines via intervening directly at the level of the factors that adversely affect optimal vaccination.
OBJECTIVES: The objective of this research project was to investigate the percentage of vaccination coverage in Cretan children up to 18 months of age and to determine the social and demographic factors that adversely affect optimal vaccination coverage in the study population.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: We investigated the vaccination coverage of 515 children at the age of 6, 12 and 18 months. Univariate and multivariate statistical analyses were carried out to determine the impact of various social and demographic factors on performing all the doses of a variety of different vaccines at the ages of 6, 12 and 18 months.
RESULTS:
The percent of vaccination coverage of 6-month old Cretan children was 76.7% for DTaP, 71.5% for Hib, 60.4% for HepB, 21.9% for PCV, and 61.7% for MCC. Moreover, the percent of vaccination coverage of 12-month old Cretan children was 96.5% for DTaP, 88.9% for Hib, 90.1% for HepB, 76.7% for PCV, and 86% for MCC. In addition, the percent of vaccination coverage of 18-month old Cretan children was 17.1% for DTaP, 17.1% for Hib, 73.2% for HepB, 66.2% for MMR, 32.2% for PCV, 88.2% for MCC and 40.4% for Var. Lastly, factors that were found in univariate and/or multivariate analyses to affect the optimal vaccination of children 6, 12 and 18 months old were the education level of the mother and the father, the number of children in the family, the smoking of mother during pregnancy, the age of the mother at child’s birth and the body mass index of the mother prior to pregnancy. 3
Δημόσια Υγεία & Διοίκηση Υπηρεσιών Υγείας
Τμήμα Ιατρικής – Πανεπιστήμιο Κρήτης
CONCLUSION: This research project evaluated the vaccination coverage of children enrolled in the study “Rea”. Our data show that the percent of vaccination coverage for Cretan children up to 18 months old in the prefecture of Heraklion is suboptimal and below the goal of 90% vaccination that has been set by the WHO for developed countries. Furthermore, the present research project verified the results of previously published studies, which have demonstrated that specific social and demographic factors adversely affect optimal vaccination in children. Our data clearly show that systematic efforts are required to enhance the vaccination coverage of children in Crete, and identify several factors, which can be targeted by social interventions in order to improve vaccination statistics in Cretan children.
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