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. 2024 May 7;14(5):e080370.
doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2023-080370.

Identifying factors that can be used to assess a country's readiness to deploy a new vaccine or improve uptake of an underutilised vaccine: a scoping review

Aomesh Bhatt  1 , Vaneesha Monk  2 , Alexandra Bhatti  3 , Amanda L Eiden  4 , Lindsay Hermany  5 , Natasha Hansen  3 , Mark P Connolly  6 , Luke Baxter  2 , Samantha Vanderslott  2 , Rachel Mitrovich #  7 , Rebeccah Slater #  2
Affiliations

Identifying factors that can be used to assess a country's readiness to deploy a new vaccine or improve uptake of an underutilised vaccine: a scoping review

Aomesh Bhatt et al. BMJ Open. .

Abstract

Objectives: Identifying whether a country is ready to deploy a new vaccine or improve uptake of an existing vaccine requires knowledge of a diverse range of interdependent, context-specific factors. This scoping review aims to identify common themes that emerge across articles, which include tools or guidance that can be used to establish whether a country is ready to deploy a new vaccine or increase uptake of an underutilised vaccine.

Design: Scoping review following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses for Scoping Reviews guidelines.

Data sources: Embase, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, Google Scholar, MEDLINE, PsycINFO and Web of Science were searched for articles published until 9 September 2023. Relevant articles were also identified through expert opinion.

Eligibility criteria: Articles published in any year or language that included tools or guidance to identify factors that influence a country's readiness to deploy a new or underutilised vaccine.

Data extraction and synthesis: Two independent reviewers screened records and performed data extraction. Findings were synthesised by conducting a thematic analysis.

Results: 38 articles met our inclusion criteria; these documents were created using methodologies including expert review panels and Delphi surveys and varied in terms of content and context-of-use. 12 common themes were identified relevant to a country's readiness to deploy a new or underutilised vaccine. These themes were as follows: (1) legal, political and professional consensus; (2) sociocultural factors and communication; (3) policy, guidelines and regulations; (4) financing; (5) vaccine characteristics and supply logistics; (6) programme planning; (7) programme monitoring and evaluation; (8) sustainable and integrated healthcare provision; (9) safety surveillance and reporting; (10) disease burden and characteristics; (11) vaccination equity and (12) human resources and training of professionals.

Conclusions: This information has the potential to form the basis of a globally applicable evidence-based vaccine readiness assessment tool that can inform policy and immunisation programme decision-makers.

Keywords: Health Equity; INFECTIOUS DISEASES; Public health.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: LH, AE, AL, RM and AlB are employees of Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC, a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA and potentially own stock and/or hold stock options in Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The Preferred Reporting for Systematic reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) diagram representing the systematic literature search.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Characteristics of articles included in the review. (A) Publication year; (B) Vaccine type; (C) In-text description of approach used to gather relevant information; (D) In-text description of type of guidance document.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Summary of core themes, listed by number of included articles discussing each theme.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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