Publication
Title
Economic evaluation of vaccination programmes in older adults and the elderly : important issues and challenges
Author
Abstract
High-income countries are undergoing demographic transitions towards populations with substantial larger proportions of older adults. Due to the increased susceptibility of older adults to infectious diseases and their consequences, vaccination programmes are an important health intervention to help maintain healthy ageing. While much of the existing literature suggests that current vaccination programmes targeted at older adults and the elderly are likely to be cost effective in high-income countries, we argue that it is important to more fully consider some important issues and challenges. Since the majority of vaccines have been developed for children, economic evaluations of vaccination programmes have consequentially tended to focus on this age group and on how to incorporate herd-immunity effects. While programmes targeted at older adults and the elderly may also induce some herd effects, there are other important challenges to consider in these economic evaluations. For example, age and time effects in relation to vaccine efficacy and duration of immunity, as well as heterogeneity between targeted individuals in terms of risk of infection, severity of disease and response to vaccination. For some pathogens, there is also the potential for interactions with childhood programmes in the form of herd-immunity effects.
Language
English
Source (journal)
Pharmacoeconomics. - Auckland, 1998 - 2015
Publication
Auckland : 2016
ISSN
1170-7690
DOI
10.1007/S40273-016-0393-0
Volume/pages
34 :8 (2016) , p. 723-731
ISI
000379175100001
Pubmed ID
26914091
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (publisher's version - intranet only)
UAntwerpen
Faculty/Department
Research group
Publication type
Subject
Affiliation
Publications with a UAntwerp address
External links
Web of Science
Record
Identifier
Creation 29.07.2016
Last edited 28.01.2024
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