Relationship between Vaccination Coverage, Public Awareness, and Infectious Disease Prevention

Abstract

Vaccination is one of the most applied public health measure for preventing infectious diseases, but coverage is below recommended levels in many communities in terms of public awareness and systemic barriers in the access to vaccination. A quantitative correlational study was entered into to examine the relationships between public awareness, vaccine uptake and prevention outcomes for infectious diseases. The respondents from the urban and semi-urban households were recruited as a convenience sample of 250. A self-administered questionnaire that assessed the level of vaccination, whether the behaviorers were aware of immunization programs and the effectiveness of vaccines against infectious diseases was used to obtain data. The techniques used were descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, Cronbach's alpha reliability test and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) using AMOS. The reliability coefficients for the scaled items varied from .78 to .83. The correlations found between public awareness and vaccination coverage, and between vaccination coverage and disease prevention outcomes were significant and positive, with r values of .61 and .63 respectively and p values of < .001 for each of the correlations. After accounting for the effect of public awareness on vaccination coverage, the direct effect of vaccination coverage on disease prevention (β = .24) was added to the indirect effect (β = .32); (β = .56 denoting the total effect of public awareness on disease prevention). The model fit very well (RMSEA = .058; CFI = .97). The results support that public awareness campaigns in the community regarding immunization knowledge and attitudes are a cost-effective tool which can be utilized for increasing the rate of vaccination and hence the reduction of infectious diseases.