Abstract
BackgroundVaccination programs often organize subsidies and public relations in order to obtain high uptake rates and coverage. However, effects of subsidies and public relations have not been studied well in the literature. In this study, the demand function of pneumococcal vaccination among the elderly in Japan is estimated, incorporating effects of public relations and subsidy.MethodsUsing a data from a questionnaire survey sent to municipalities, the varying and constant elasticity models were applied to estimate the demand function. The response variable is the uptake rate. Explanatory variables are: subsidy supported shot price, operating years of the program, target population size for vaccination, shot location intensity, income and various public relations tools. The best model is selected by c-AIC, and varying and constant price elasticities are calculated from estimation results.ResultsThe vaccine uptake rate and the shot price have a negative relation. From the results of varying price elasticity, the demand for vaccination is elastic at municipalities with a shot price higher than 3,708 JPY (35.7 USD). Effects of public relations on the uptake rate are not found.ConclusionsIt can be suggested that municipalities with a shot price higher than 3,708 JPY (35.7 USD) could subsidize more and reduce price to increase the demand for vaccination. Effects of public relations are not confirmed in this study, probably due to measurement errors of variables used for public relations, and studies at micro level exploring individual’s response to public relations would be required.
Highlights
Vaccination programs often organize subsidies and public relations in order to obtain high uptake rates and coverage
The administration of 23-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine (PPV) has been proven to be effective in reducing the incidence of invasive pneumococcal disease caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae (S. pneumoniae) among the elderly by 50% to 70% [1,2]
Our experience in this study suggests that rigorous public relations (PR) measurements for estimating the demand function across diverse municipal programs is quite difficult unless any contextual opportunity is offered
Summary
Vaccination programs often organize subsidies and public relations in order to obtain high uptake rates and coverage. Several developed countries have implemented national pneumococcal vaccination programs for the elderly in order to prevent the disease and improve its outcomes [5,6,7,8], the incidence of the disease varies worldwide [9]. Such programs target high uptake rates and coverages [10,11], for which subsidies and public relations (PR) are often organized in order to encourage the elderly to get vaccinated. This lack of knowledge is probably due to the fact that usually, immunization programs set fixed subsidized vaccine price for target population, and this makes it difficult to observe the consumer’s response to price changes
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