Childhood Immunisations

Immunisation uptake rates by Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD 2009) Category

The Scottish Government found an error in the income domain of SIMD 2009 in July 2010.  This affects the SIMD 2009 income domain and overall SIMD 2009.  The effect of this error on these statistics has been assessed as minimal and does not change the key messages.  For further information on this error see http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/SIMD.  These analyses by deprivation are due to be updated in March 2011 and these statistics will be revised as part of the update.

Personal, social and cultural issues including deprivation are all factors which may influence a parent's decision as to whether or not to immunise their child. In order to explore the effect of deprivation, uptake rates have been calculated by SIMD 2009 category for each of the childhood primary immunisations for Scotland and NHS Board (click on the chart below for all related data).

The following charts illustrate that deprivation has some effect on uptake rates. Figure 1 shows immunisation uptake rates for Diphtheria by 12 months old. This chart shows that uptake among children in the most deprived area (SIMD 1) is 1.2 percentage points lower than the least deprived area (SIMD 5). However, even in the most deprived area (SIMD 1) the uptake rate is high at 96.8%.

Click on the above chart for data on all primary vaccinations by SIMD 2009 [ 301 KB]

Figure 2 shows immunisation uptake rates for MMR1 by 24 months old by SIMD 2009 category. At Scotland level, the highest uptake rate, 94.7 percent, appears in the least deprived area (SIMD 5). The lowest rate can be found in the most deprived area (SIMD 1), at 92.5 percent.

Click on the above chart for data on all primary vaccinations by SIMD 2009 [ 301 KB]

Data are available for all NHS Boards and Scotland [301 KB]

It is also interesting to look at the variation in immunisation uptake rates as children age by SIMD 2009 category. Figure 3 shows that, although deprivation has a limited effect on uptake by age 12 months, there are noticeable differences in the level of increase in uptake as children age, which appear to be closely related to deprivation. Children in the more deprived areas appear to be vaccinated at a later age compared with children in the less deprived areas. For example by 6 months of age there are marked differences across the deprivation categories with 93.4 percent of children completing a primary course of Diphtheria in the least deprived area (SIMD 5) compared to only 85.5 percent in the most deprived area (SIMD 1).

Click on the above chart for data on Diphtheria and MMR [ 194 KB]

Figure 4 shows a similar pattern for MMR1 where the least deprived area (SIMD 5) are immunising earlier with 90.5 percent immunised by 18 months compared to only 84.9 percent in SIMD 1. There may be some variation in NHS Board practice when scheduling children to be immunised against MMR1 and this may contribute to the varying patterns of uptake rates in MMR1 across NHS boards.

Click on the above chart for data on Diphtheria and MMR [ 194 KB]

Data are available for Scotland only [194 KB]

 

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