Immunization Coverage |
Monitoring Methods
Background
Good quality immunisation data and appropriate methods to estimate immunisation are essential to improve immunisation coverage and accurately monitoring the progress towards the Millennium Development Goal 4 to reduce child mortality. Immunisation data are drawn from routine administrative reporting by countries through health management information systems (HMIS) and specific ad hoc surveys, to produce estimates of national immunisation coverage of vaccines, which are processed and used by WHO, UNICEF, the GAVI alliance, governments and other immunisation stakeholders. There is, however, evidence on the lack of accuracy of immunisation coverage figures, from a range of different reports and studies. Furthermore, global, regional or national figures mask inequities of access to immunisation between specific groups (e.g. by socio-economic groups).
Partners
- Swiss Centre for International Health, Swiss Tropical Institute (SCIH/STI), leading institution
- Associates in Tropical Health (LATH), Liverpool
- Euro Health Group (EHG)
Funding Agency
The GAVI Alliance
Objectives
The main objective is to contribute to the improvement of the quality of immunisation coverage data and to establish a robust base to build an international consensus on the best practices to estimate immunization coverage.
Activities
- Statistical analyses of secondary data
Analyses of secondary data (e.g. DHS, WHO official estimates) describing trend, discrepancies, and disaggregation of immunisation coverage data
- Literature review of reports of immunisation coverage
A systematic review of all type of studies describing immunisation coverage figures of infants and children routine systematic vaccination. Methods and their appropriatnes to the context where they are applied will be described as well as factors related to inequities in the access to immunisation services.
- Country studies to document best practices in estimating immunisation coverage.
Three countries with good performance in coverage and with some evidence of good quality of data will be selected. A qualitative analysis will be undertaken to identify factors related to good performance, how common barriers to immunisation have been addressed, and lessons learnt from those countries will be drawn.
Output
The outputs consist in reports with the following final findings:
- Current status of the data quality issues and methods to estimate immunisation coverage, and the presentation of coverage estimates by sub-groups
- Description of the best practices related to immunisation coverage estimates and recommendations on the use of immunisation methods and data
- Best countries case studies including recommendations on the improvement of access to data for decision making
- Articles in peer-reviewed journals
Financial Volume
350,000 US$
Time frame
January 2008 to November 2008