Peer-reviewed article
Vaccination coverage in children resident in a rural community in Nigeria: socio-ecological and contextual determinants
Osede Ignis Iribhogbe, Sonila M. Tomini ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examined vaccination coverage among children aged 12-59 months in a rural Nigerian community. Of 608 children assessed, 70.56% were completely vaccinated, which is below the global target of 80%. The research identified several factors associated with vaccination status, including caregiver education, knowledge about vaccination, family structure, maternal antenatal care visits, type of birth, and breastfeeding status. The findings suggest that interventions should address individual, community, and healthcare-related factors to improve immunisation rates in rural areas.
Key points
- 70.56% of children in the rural community were completely vaccinated, below the 80% global target
- Caregiver educational status was significantly associated with child vaccination status (P < 0.001)
- Maternal knowledge about vaccination was a significant determinant of immunisation status (P < 0.001)
- Maternal antenatal care visits were significantly associated with child vaccination status (P < 0.001)
- Child breastfeeding status was significantly associated with vaccination status (P < 0.001)
Limitations
This is a cross-sectional study, so it can only identify associations, not causal relationships between determinants and vaccination status. The study is limited to one rural community and may not be generalizable to other rural or urban settings in Nigeria or elsewhere.
Abstract
Abstract Objectives The national vaccination coverage rate and the coverage rate in rural communities in Nigeria are below the global vaccine action target of 80%; hence, evaluation of factors that determine vaccination status and determine the proportion of children aged 12–59 months who are fully immunised in the rural community should be conducted. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted using an interview-structured questionnaire that was pilot tested before being administered. In the study, a two-stage sampling technique was used and the sample size was determined using the EPI-Info, version 7, software. Key Findings Of the 608 caregiver–child pairs that was assessed, the majority (525, 86.35%) were mothers. Assessment of immunisation status showed that the majority of the children (429, 70.56%) were completely vaccinated while 179 (29.44%) were incompletely vaccinated. Educational status (χ 2 = 59.85, df = 4, P < 0.001), the level of knowledge about vaccination (χ 2 = 77.62, df = 2, P < 0.001), family setting (χ 2 = 27.70, df = 3, P < 0.001), maternal ANC visits (χ 2 = 85.37, df = 2, P < 0.001), type of birth (χ 2 = 7.27, df = 2, P = 0.03) and child’s breastfeeding status (χ 2 = 80.75, df = 2, P < 0.001) were all significantly associated with the vaccination status of the child. Conclusion The study has shown that immunisation coverage in the rural community surveyed is still below the expected target; thus, public health intervention should still focus on individual, community, socio-cultural and healthcare-related factors as this will improve the immunisation status of children in rural communities.