European Commission - Public Health: healthindicators.org

General information about this indicator

The indicator presented here is an ECHI shortlist indicator. The ECHI shortlist is a list of about 90 public health indicators, which has been developed by the European Commission together with the European Union Member States. Currently (2009-2011) a Joint Action for ECHIM is ongoing, which aims at implementing the ECHI shortlist. Twenty four European Union Member States and some other European countries are participating in the Joint Action (click here for the full list of participating countries). More information on ECHI and the Joint Action can be found at the ECHIM website. More information on the specifications of this indicator can be found in the indicator’s Documentation Sheet.

Indicator definition

Percent of infants reaching their 1st birthday in the given calendar year who have been fully vaccinated against pertussis (whooping cough), diphtheria, tetanus (DPT) and poliomyelitis; and percent of infants reaching their 2nd birthday in the given calendar year who have been fully vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR).

Source information

WHO-Health For All (HFA), 2009. The data, accompanied by more detailed background information, are available at the WHO website.

The data for vaccination coverage in WHO-HFA come from the WHO centralized information system for infectious diseases (CISID).

WHO-HFA is the preferred source for data on vaccination coverage in children for ECHIM.

Availability

WHO/Europe's programme on vaccine-preventable diseases and immunization collects data on vaccination coverage in each Member State. Data are collected annually, using the WHO/United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) joint reporting form.

Data on vaccination coverage for diphtheria, measles, mumps, pertussis, poliomyelitis, rubella and tetanus are available for all EU-27 Member States, as well as for the other countries participating in the Joint Action for ECHIM.

In WHO-HFA data for diphtheria, measles, pertussis, poliomyelitis and tetanus are available for the period 1970-2008. Data for rubella for most countries are available for the period 1991-2008. Data for mumps for most countries are available for the period 1991-2003.

Comparability between countries

Comparability between countries is limited as quite substantial differences between national vaccination schemes exist, e.g. in some countries certain vaccinations are obligatory, while in other countries all vaccinations are voluntary. Another difference is that in some countries people have to pay for the vaccinations themselves, while in other countries the costs are covered by the government. Vaccination schemes also differ between countries in terms of timing and target ages. Therefore the ages at which full vaccination against a certain disease is accomplished for some countries may deviate from the WHO definition.

WHO reports some deviances from the recommended methodology for calculating the vaccination coverage, such as the reporting of different age groups (see the WHO-HFA database). Detailed information on the vaccination schemes in the different European countries is available in CISID.

Comparability within countries

The trends for vaccination coverage for diphtheria, measles, mumps, pertussis, poliomyelitis, rubella and tetanus show some remarkable downward peaks for certain countries. No explanations for these strong variations are provided in the background information in the WHO-HFA database.