Incorporating vaccines into vaccination schedules around the world: A scoping review

Introduction

Over the past 50 years, immunization initiatives and programs promoted by member countries of the World Health Organization have prevented approximately 154 million deaths, 146 million of which would have occurred among children under 5 years of age. The development of vaccines and implementing global immunization strategies against vaccine-preventable diseases have been instrumental in enhancing global health security.

Objective

To analyze the process of integrating new vaccines into vaccination schedules worldwide.

Methodology

This study is a scoping review, conducted in accordance with the 2024 Joanna Briggs Institute Manual for Evidence Synthesis and reported following the guidelines of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses - Extension for Scoping Reviews

Results

The search strategy yielded 2432 citations, with 688 removed due to duplication. Consequently, 1744 titles and abstracts were assessed, resulting in 75 studies being included in the review. The majority of these studies found that the assessment process for incorporating new vaccines primarily aims at reducing costs and/or promoting collective and individual social and economic benefits, with most focusing on the vaccination schedule for children up to 12 years of age. To evaluate the social and economic aspects, the predominant strategies were cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit analyses of new vaccine incorporation. The most frequently employed tools included the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio, years of life lost adjusted for disability, years of life adjusted for quality, and the Markov model.

Final Considerations

The process of vaccine incorporation has been shown to extend beyond immediate health impacts, encompassing social improvements and cost optimization capable of producing long-term effects.