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Pertussis vaccination rates unchanged after epidemic
Recent data show no increase in pertussis vaccination rates occurred following the 2011-2012 pertussis outbreak in Washington State.
Elizabeth R. Wolf, MD, MPH, of the Seattle Children’s Research Institute in Seattle, and colleagues compared the proportion of infants aged 3 to 8 months who were up-to-date with pertussis-containing vaccines, including diphtheria-tetanus-acellular pertussis (DTaP) and combination vaccines that contained DTaP. The investigators also recorded receipt of 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV7; Prevnar, Pfizer) and 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine) PCV13; Prevnar 13, Pfizer) before, during and after the epidemic, which occurred from October 2011 through December 2012. According to Wolf and colleagues, this lack in increase of vaccination rates goes against conventional wisdom that vaccine acceptance uniformly increases when risk of disease is high.
Elizabeth R. Wolf
Infants in the study were enrolled in the Washington State Immunization Information System.
Overall, 67.4% of infants were up-to-date with a pertussis-containing vaccine before the epidemic, compared with 69.5% during and 67.6% after the epidemic. The proportion of up-to-date infants was not significantly different before and during the epidemic or before and after the epidemic. Further, there was no significant difference in the proportion of infants up-to-date with pneumococcal vaccines when comparing epidemic and post-epidemic rates with pre-epidemic and post-epidemic rates.
When comparing pre-epidemic and during epidemic rates, there was no significant changes in up-to-date status with pertussis-containing vaccines beyond changes in up-to-date status with pneumococcal vaccines. However, there was a significant difference between post-epidemic and pre-epidemic time points.
Up-to-date status for pertussis-containing vaccines varied across counties; 2 counties had significant increases and 3 counties had significant decreases.
“The lack of significant change in pertussis vaccination with the 2011 to 2012 epidemic is in contrast to studies of individual health behavior that positively correlate vaccination with greater perception of disease severity and susceptibility. One possible explanation…is that the fear of vaccine-related adverse effects may have remained more influential on parental decision-making than the fear of disease,” the researchers wrote.
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.