Reduced childhood mortality, increased longevity and changing birth rates are dramatically changing demography in Europe and around the world. With these changes, comes the need to extend the vision of vaccination from early life and childhood alone to the whole life span (e.g. adolescents, adults, and the elderly) and from treatment to prevention.
The evidence concerning the essential role played by vaccines in reducing morbidity and mortality caused by vaccine-preventable diseases and associated economic and societal costs across different age groups is mounting, and, at a time of increasingly tighter public budgets, there is broad recognition of the need to shift resource allocation from treatment to prevention. Nonetheless, the support for vaccination throughout life remains low.
The reasons for this might be several and due to multiple hard-to-address direct and/or indirect factors impacting decisions at national and healthcare delivery point level as well as the general public’s perception.
Drivers underlying limited utilisation of vaccines through life
Vaccines Europe is currently conducting a survey on the barriers and drivers underpinning limited and inconsistent utilisation of immunisation across different stages of life. Read more…
