Immunisations: deprivation

The relationship between deprivation and immunisation uptake has been recently summarised in The Department of Health (2005) report 'Vaccination services: reducing inequalities in uptake' (295kb), which showed that in England:

• Inequalities in immunisation uptake were persistent and results in lower coverage in poorer families
• Those who remain unimmunised, or not fully up to date, are more likely to live in disadvantaged areas and less likely to use primary care services
• Poorer children or households with low up take rates are at increased risk of developing vaccine preventable diseases

In order to explore the effect of deprivation, the Child Health team at ISD calculated, for the period July to September 2003, immunisation uptake rates by deprivation  category for Diphtheria and MMR in Scotland:

• Uptake of the Diphtheria vaccination in the least deprived area (depcat 1) is 96.8 percent compared with 92.1 percent in the most deprived area (depcat 7).
• However immunisation uptake rates for MMR at 24 months by deprivation category shows that deprivation has very little effect on uptake of MMR  with the the highest rate, 87.2 percent, appearing in the least deprived area (depcat 1) closely followed by depcat 5 which shows an uptake rate of 86.9 percent.

Recently published research, exploring uptake of MMR, after age of 24 months, in Scotland, however, did find that the greater the deprivation, the greater the tendency for late vaccination. Those who were most affluent, were more likely to vaccinate early or not at all (Wright and Polack (2006).