Broader Economic Impact of Vaccination: Reviewing and Appraising the Strength of Evidence
2015
Economic evaluations of public health programs such as immunization often consider only direct health benefits and medical cost savings. Evidence linking immunization to important benefits in indicators such as childhood development, household behavior, and other macro-economic data are unclear.
A conceptual framework of the pathways between immunization and these broader economic benefits was developed through expert consultation. The authors obtained articles from previous reviews, snowballing, and expert consultation, and associated them with one of the pathways and assessed them using modified Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) criteria.
Twenty studies directly relevant to one or more pathways were included. Evidence of moderate quality from was found for improved childhood physical development, educational outcomes, and equity in distribution of health gains resulting from immunization. The only evidence that related benefits to household economic behavior and macro-economic indicators was from modelling or from outside the immunization field.
Broader Economic Impact of Vaccination: Reviewing and Appraising the Strength of Evidence
Source:
Jit M, Hutubessy R, Png ME et al. The Broader Economic Impact of Vaccination: Reviewing and Appraising the Strength of Evidence. BMC Medicine 2015;13 (1): 209. http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12916-015-0446-9