Peer-reviewed article
Vaccination coverage and associated factors among children aged 12 – 23 months in Northwest Ethiopia
Tadesse Dagget Tesfaye, Worku Animaw Temesgen, Ayele Semachew Kasa ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study measured vaccination coverage among children aged 12-23 months in Northwest Ethiopia and identified factors associated with whether children received all recommended vaccines. Only 58.4% of children were fully vaccinated, while 17% were partially vaccinated and 24.6% received no vaccines. Factors linked to full vaccination included living in urban areas, attending antenatal care, delivering at health facilities, and mothers knowing the vaccination schedule. The study recommends increasing antenatal care use and providing better information to mothers about vaccination timing.
Key points
- Full vaccination coverage was 58.4%, with 17% partially vaccinated and 24.6% not vaccinated at all
- Urban residence, antenatal care visits, and institutional delivery were positively associated with full vaccination
- Mothers knowing the vaccination schedule and vaccinating sick children were associated with better coverage
- Travel time to vaccination sites of 30 minutes or less was negatively associated with full vaccination status
- Coverage in Northwest Ethiopia was better than the national average but still far below planned targets
Limitations
This is a cross-sectional study, so it can only identify associations, not prove causation. The study does not explain why certain factors like shorter travel time were associated with lower vaccination coverage, which is counterintuitive and may reflect unmeasured confounding.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Full vaccination coverage has been identified as the foundation for the prevention of morbidity and mortality from the childhood illnesses. However, a significant number of children do not get recommended vaccinations. The problem is much worse in low-income countries with varied figures and evidence gap. Therefore, this study was conducted to assess vaccination coverage and its predicting factors in one of the low-income country Ethiopia, particularly in northwest Ethiopia. METHODS: A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted in Northwest Ethiopia in 2016 on 846 children aged 12 to 23 completed months. Cluster sampling method was used. Mothers or caretakers were interviewed. SPSS version 20 was used for analysis. RESULTS: In Northwest Ethiopia, full-vaccination coverage for the children aged 12-23 months was 58.4%, while 17% and 24.6% were partially vaccinated and not vaccinated at all respectively. Child full vaccination status has a positive association with urban residence, having antenatal care visit, institutional delivery for the study child, vaccination site at health institutions, mothers who knows vaccination schedule of a catchment area, and mothers taking a child for vaccination even if the child is sick. However, mothers who ever-married and their travel time to the nearest vaccination site ≤ 30 minutes were negatively associated with child full-vaccination status. CONCLUSION: Vaccination coverage in Northwest Ethiopia, East Gojam, is better than the national coverage. Yet, it is far below the plan. Encouraging antenatal care utilization, delivery at health institutions, and providing adequate information on child vaccination (including when to start, return and finish) for mothers would increase full-vaccination coverage.