Exposing concerns about vaccination in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review

Abstract

Objectives: Concerns about vaccination lead to under- and no-vaccination. Our objective is to synthesise and expose evidence on individuals' and communities' concerns about vaccination to influence current debates on strategies to improve vaccination coverage in low- and middle-income countries.

Methods: Systematic literature review till February 2014, following standard methods. Published and grey literature that focused on individuals and community concerns on childhood vaccinations were selected.

Results: 44 quantitative, qualitative and mixed-methods studies were included. Main reported concerns referred to perceptions of vaccine harms (e.g. attribution of fatal events). Other concerns included programme distrust (mainly due to rumours and conspiracies) and health system unfriendliness.

Conclusions: Concerns about vaccination are widespread and further worsen the challenges related to programmatic and health system barriers to vaccination. There is a disconnection between qualitative and quantitative research which misses the opportunity to quantify what is reported in the former. Strikingly, there is a wealth of evidence on concerns but much lesser evidence on interventions to address them. We welcome World Health Organization initiative to tackle vaccine hesitancy and call for the synthesis of evidence and production of guidance on strategies to address concerns on vaccination.

Keywords: Concerns; Hesitancy; Immunisation; Low- and middle-income countries; Systematic review; Vaccination.