Reporting the Shots: Exploring Barriers and Facilitators in Pediatric Vaccine Reporting

Abstract

For 30 years, the Vaccines for Children (VFC) Program has ensured low-income children have access to vaccines, leading to millions of illnesses averted, hundreds of thousands of deaths avoided and billions of dollars in health savings. Yet policy, technology and personnel gaps allow many VFC vaccines to remain unreported to a jurisdiction’s immunization information system (IIS). This study identified potential barriers and facilitators to IIS reporting among VFC providers through in-depth, qualitative interviews with pediatric healthcare workers across four reporting-mandated, but historically under-reporting states: Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, and Massachusetts. The study also highlighted COVID-19 influences on provider IIS reporting.