An investigation of socio psychological factors affecting infant immunization

Abstract

In summary, our survey and subsequent statistical analyses indicated not only that there were differences in the general population between immunized and unimmunized populations but also that there were substantial differences within the unimmunized group when data were analyzed by geographic area. Furthermore, the development of efficient discriminant functions has great potential as an 'early warning' system to help identify infants for promotional mailings which have been tailored to the parent's needs and characteristics; such identification of 'high risk' infants could also be used by public health nurses for home visits, etc. Thus, the study has helped confirm the distinctive characteristics of the unimmunized sub populations, and demonstrated how these findings may be used to develop programs to improve the overall level of infant immunization.