Abstract :
Background: Throughout the globe, vaccines have saved countless lives, improved health and wellbeing. Vaccine hesitancy at the individual and community level risks the public health consequences of vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks.
Objective: 1. To find out the proportion of vaccine hesitancy 2. To determine the factors contributing to vaccine hesitancy for childhood vaccinations in urban slums of Bengaluru Rural District, Karnataka.
Methodology: A community based cross sectional study was carried out in 8 urban slums of Bengaluru Rural District from August 2019 to September 2020. Children aged 0-59 months were primary subjects and mothers / primary caregivers of children 0-59 months were secondary study subjects. Data Collection was done using a predesigned, pretested questionnaire and by reviewing immunization cards. Data analysis was done using SPSS version 20. The association between Vaccine hesitancy and predictor variables was tested by using chi –square test.
Results: Vaccine hesitancy was present among 75% of the mothers / primary care givers. Main Reasons for Vaccine hesitancy reported were fear of vaccination side effects, sickness of child, unaware of availability of vaccines, felt unnecessary to get child vaccinated, The present study reported delay in vaccination for the birth dose of BCG (66%), Hepatitis B (40%); OPV (9%). Vaccine hesitancy was found to be more in nuclear families, low socio-economic class, in female children, birth order of 3 or higher, among mothers who had primary education and are homemakers. This difference was found to be statistically significant. Among the characteristics of children, the gender of the child and birth order was found to be significantly associated with vaccine hesitancy.
Conclusion: One of the major reasons found in this study for Vaccine hesitancy was concern regarding safety. Therefore vaccination programmes and policies have to feature strong community engagement strategies to increase awareness about the vaccines and remove fears.
Keyword :
Vaccine hesitancy, Urban slums, Childhood vaccines, Immunization.