Peer-reviewed article
Annual Immunisation Coverage Report 2016
Brynley Hull, Alexandra Hendry, Aditi Dey, Frank Beard, Julia Brotherton et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-sonnet-5-5This is the tenth annual report on childhood and adolescent vaccination coverage in Australia for 2016. It uses data from the Australian Immunisation Register and the National HPV Vaccination Program Register. Coverage at 12 months rose to 93.7% after about a decade at around 90%. The gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous children at 12 months narrowed, but flu vaccine coverage for Indigenous children stayed low. The report suggests the 'No Jab No Pay' policy may have contributed to some of the increases.
Key points
- 'Fully immunised' coverage at 12 months reached 93.7% (December 2016), and 93.4% at 60 months.
- Coverage at 24 months fell from 90.8% to 89.6%, likely because the assessment now counts four DTPa doses instead of three.
- The Indigenous coverage gap at 12 months fell from 6.7 to 1.7 percentage points (March 2013 to December 2016). Indigenous coverage at 60 months has been higher than non-Indigenous coverage since late 2012.
- Seasonal influenza vaccine coverage for Indigenous children aged 6 months to under 5 years was 11.6% in 2016.
- Of 411,157 ten- to nineteen-year-olds without a recorded second MMR dose, 10.5% (43,103) received it by the end of 2016. In 2016, 78.6% of 15-year-old girls and 72.9% of boys had three HPV doses.
Limitations
This is a descriptive coverage report, so it cannot show that 'No Jab No Pay' caused the changes; the document only says it may have contributed. Changes in the assessment algorithm also affect comparisons over time.
Abstract
This tenth annual immunisation coverage report shows data for the calendar year 2016 derived from the Australian Immunisation Register (AIR) and the National Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Vaccination Program Register. After a decade of being largely stable at around 90%, ‘fully immunised’ coverage at the 12-month assessment age increased in 2016 to reach 93.7% for the age assessment quarterly data point in December 2016, similar to the 93.4% for the age assessment quarterly data point in December 2016 for 60 months of age. Implementation of the ‘No Jab No Pay’ policy may have contributed to these increases. While ‘fully immunised’ coverage at the 24-month age assessment milestone decreased marginally from 90.8%, in December 2015, to 89.6% for the age assessment quarterly data point in December 2016, this was likely due to the assessment algorithm being amended in December 2016 to include four doses of DTPa vaccine instead of three, following reintroduction of the 18-month booster dose. Among Indigenous children, the gap in coverage assessed at 12 months of age decreased fourfold, from 6.7 percentage points in March 2013 to only 1.7 percentage points lower than non-Indigenous children in December 2016. Since late 2012, ‘fully immunised’ coverage among Indigenous children at 60 months of age has been higher than for non-Indigenous children. Vaccine coverage for the nationally funded seasonal influenza vaccine program for Indigenous children aged 6 months to <5 years, which commenced in 2015, remained suboptimal nationally in 2016 at 11.6%. Changes in MMR coverage in adolescents were evaluated for the first time. Of the 411,157 ten- to nineteen-year-olds who were not recorded as receiving a second dose of MMR vaccine by 31 December 2015, 43,103 (10.5%) of them had received it by the end of 2016. Many of these catch-up doses are likely to have been administered as a result of the introduction on 1 January 2016 of the Australian Government’s ‘No Jab No Pay’ policy. In 2016, 78.6% of girls aged 15 years had three documented doses of HPV vaccine (jurisdictional range 67.8–82.9%), whereas 72.9% of boys (up from 67.1 % in 2015) had received three doses.