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Vaccination indicators

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Vaccination coverage, as well as most of the remaining indicators, are expressed as a prevalence or proportion. Vaccination coverage has the added complexity of having several potential sources of data, including vaccination or child heath card documentation and mother's report. If a large proportion of vaccinated children are defined as vaccinated based on only the mothers' report, vaccine coverage is calculated twice: once counting these children as vaccinated and once counting them as unvaccinated. This can be done by presenting the vaccinated children in two groups: one whose vaccination data came from a card and one who vaccination data came from mother's recall.

Bardera, Somalia 1993

Source of data on measles vaccination Number Percent
Mothers' report 131 38.5
Vaccination card 29 8.5


In this situation, if only children with card documentation of ever having been vaccinated against measles is used, the measles vaccine coverage is very poor (8.5%). If mothers' reports are added in, the coverage rises somewhat, but is still only 47.1%. Either way, measles vaccination is badly needed in this population.

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The incidence rate of vaccine-preventable diseases can be displayed as above for morbidity indicators (click here to go to pages on morbidity indicators).