Socioeconomic factors effecting polio vaccination in Pakistan

Abstract

Background: Child vaccinations are one of most cost effective health programs that have weak-ened a number of child morbidity and mortality rate all over the world. Pakistan is considered one of the major country of the world, where people especially children are bound by many harmful infectious diseases like polio, hepatitis, viral infections etc. The effectiveness of routine childhood immunization programs relies on mul-tiple factors. Socio-economic determinants have the potential to affect immunization programs. The purpose of the present study was to deter-mine the association between socio-economic factors and polio vaccination coverage among children in Pakistan. Methods: The study used data from the Pakistan demographic health sur-vey (PDHS 2006-07 N 10023). The study focused on respondents who had births in last five years. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to determine the association between variables. Spss version 20 was used for data analysis. A number of socioeconomic variables were used in chi square & binary logistic regression model to check out their association with polio vacci-nation coverage. Results: Study shows that most dominant factors associated with polio vaccina-tion coverage were region that is NWFP OR 3.48 (odd ratio) with 95% confidence interval (C-I 2.06 & 3.13) & Punjab OR 2.54 (C-I 2.062 & 3.131), residence urban OR 1.626 (C-I 1.451 & 1.822), sex of child male OR 1.125 (C-I 1.008 & 1.256), age of mother 25 -34 years OR 1.11 (C-I 0.978 & 1.276), wealth index rich OR 2.98 (C-I 2.55 & 3.48), age of child 4 -5 years OR 1.17 (C-I 0.899 & 1.538), mo-ther's education higher OR 2.06 (C-I 1.776 & 2.411), father's education higher OR 1.399 (C-I 1.221 & 1.203) ,father's occupation professional OR 1.27 (C-I 0.929 & 1.737). Conclusion: In devel-oping countries like Pakistan most of the chil-dren remain unvaccinated because of many so-cio-economic constraints. Poor marginalized peo-ple have a low awareness regarding the impor-tance of polio vaccine. Along with social hier-archies, educational attainment of parents is a strong indicator of defining awareness level re-garding vaccination.