Abstract
BackgroundEthiopia has low measles immunization coverage and little is known about the disparities surrounding what coverage is provided. This study assessed disparities in measles immunization and its change over time using the four Ethiopia Demographic and Health Surveys conducted between 2000 and 2016.MethodsThis is a cross-sectional analysis of data using Ethiopia Demographic and Health Surveys (EDHS) conducted between 2000 and 2016. We used the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Health Equity Assessment Toolkit (HEAT) to present the inequalities. Four measures of inequality were calculated: Difference (D), Ratio (R), Population Attributable Fraction (PAF) and Population Attributable Risk (PAR). The results were disaggregated by wealth, education, residence, sex and sub-national regions and 95% Uncertainty Intervals (UIs) were computed for each point estimate to boost confidence of the findings.ResultsMeasles immunization coverage was higher among the richest and secondary and above schools’ subgroup by nearly 30 to 31 percentage points based on point estimates (D = 31%; 95% CI; 19.48, 42.66) and 29.8 percentage points (D = 29.8%; 95% CI; 16.57, 43.06) as compared to the poorest and no education subgroup respectively in the 2016 survey. Still, in the 2016 survey, substantial economic status (PAF = 36.73; 95%CI: 29.78, 43.68), (R = 1.71; 95%CI: 1.35, 2.08), education status (PAF = 45.07; 95% CI: 41.95, 48.18), (R = 1.60; 95% CI: 1.30, 1.90), place of residence (PAF = 39.84, 95% CI: 38.40, 41.27), (R = 1.47, 95% CI: 1.20, 1. 74) and regional (PAF = 71.35, 95% CI: 31.76, 110.95), (R = 3.09, 95%CI: 2.01, 4.17) inequality were observed with both simple and complex measures. There was no statistically significant difference in the prevalence of measles immunization between male and female children in all the studied years, as indicated, for instance, by measures of PAF in 2000 (PAF = 0; 95%CI: − 6.79, 6.79), 2005 (PAF = 0; 95%CI: − 6.04, 6.04), 2011(PAF = 0; 95%CI: − 3.79, 3.79) and 2016 (PAF = 2.66; − 1.67; 6.99). Overall, the inequality of measles immunization narrowed significantly by at least some of the measures between the first and the last survey periods across all the studied subgroups.ConclusionsNational, regional and district levels of government should make a pledge to reduce inequalities in coverage of measles immunization. Equity-sensitive strategies, sufficient human and financial resources as well as continued research and monitoring of immunization coverage inequalities are necessary to achieve related sustainable development goals.
Highlights
Ethiopia has low measles immunization coverage and little is known about the disparities surrounding what coverage is provided
Coverage of measles immunization increased over the years from 2000 to 2016 for the poorest by 25 percentage points and richest by 22.1 percentage points on average (Fig. 1 and Table 1)
The progress in Ethiopia’s national coverage of measles immunizations increased until 2011, after which it plateaued though the absence of Uncertainty Intervals (UI) around point estimates makes it difficult to comment on the progress
Summary
Ethiopia has low measles immunization coverage and little is known about the disparities surrounding what coverage is provided. This study assessed disparities in measles immunization and its change over time using the four Ethiopia Demographic and Health Surveys conducted between 2000 and 2016. There has been progress in the reduction of measles mortality in the last decade in Africa [6], the disease remains an issue in the region [5, 7, 8], reflecting the challenge of sufficient herd immunity levels in areas where financial resources are limited. In 2015, 20.8 million infants did not receive the first dose of the Measles Containing Vaccine (MCV1) through routine immunization; Ethiopia accounted for 3.4% of unimmunized infants [11] and 9% of the global measles mortality [12, 13]
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