Abstract:
Widespread vaccination against important diseases plays a key role for global health security, particularly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, building and maintaining trust in immunization services remains challenging because of doubts about quality and safety of vaccines. China has periodically faced mounting pressure and even public outrage triggered by incidents of poor-quality vaccines. We aimed to evaluate the impact of the diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus (DPT) vaccine scandal of 2018 in China and the ensuing misinformation on vaccination, and investigate differential responses to the scandal by ethnic and socioeconomic factors. With data from January 2017 to December 2018 in Sichuan province, China, we used a difference-in-differences (DID) method to compare the changes in the county-level monthly DPT vaccinations against the hepatitis B vaccinations, both before and after the DPT vaccine scandal. We found that the number of DPT vaccinations decreased by 14.0 percent in response to the vaccine scandal and ensuing misinformation. The number of vaccinations in minority regions, under-developed regions, and regions with poor medical resources decreased more than in non-minority regions, developed regions, and regions with good medical resources (24.5 versus 10.1 percent, 17.3 versus 8.3 percent, and 17.0 versus 8.7 percent, respectively). People did more online searching for \"Substandard vaccine\" and \"DPT vaccine\" after the scandal, with the socioeconomically advantaged group searching more compared with the socioeconomically disadvantaged group. The results suggest the urgent need to make true information about the vaccine easily accessible over the internet, especially for the socioeconomically disadvantaged groups. Our findings for China can also have implications for immunization service planning for better safeguarding public health in other countries, particularly developing ones.
摘要:
针对重要疾病的广泛接种疫苗对全球卫生安全起着关键作用。特别是在COVID-19大流行的背景下。然而,由于对疫苗质量和安全性的怀疑,建立和保持对免疫服务的信任仍然面临挑战。中国定期面临越来越大的压力,甚至是由劣质疫苗事件引发的公众愤怒。我们的目的是评估白喉的影响,百日咳,和2018年中国破伤风(DPT)疫苗丑闻以及随之而来的疫苗接种错误信息,并调查种族和社会经济因素对丑闻的不同反应。根据四川省2017年1月至2018年12月的数据,中国,我们使用差异(DID)方法来比较县级每月DPT疫苗接种与乙型肝炎疫苗接种的变化,在DPT疫苗丑闻之前和之后。我们发现,由于疫苗丑闻和随之而来的错误信息,DPT疫苗接种数量减少了14.0%。少数民族地区接种疫苗的数量,欠发达地区,医疗资源匮乏的地区比非少数民族地区减少更多,发达地区,以及医疗资源良好的地区(24.5%对10.1%,17.3对8.3%,17.0对8.7%,分别)。丑闻发生后,人们在网上搜索了更多的“不合格疫苗”和“百白破疫苗”,与社会经济弱势群体相比,社会经济弱势群体的搜索更多。结果表明,迫切需要通过互联网轻松获取有关疫苗的真实信息,特别是社会经济弱势群体。我们对中国的发现也可以对其他国家更好地维护公共卫生的免疫服务规划产生影响。特别是发展中的。