Child immunisation is a life-saving tool which over the last years have reached out to a steady growing number of children. In order to further increase the coverage, we need to know the current one, not only in total numbers, but for each country, district and group of children. As shown by the study of Lim, Stein, Charrow and Murray: “Tracking progress towards universal childhood immunisation and the impact of global initiatives: a systematic analysis of three-dose diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis immunisation coverage“ published in the Lancet (2008) this is however not a straight forward task. Different methods yield often different figures. The study presented in this report aims at contributing towards an even better understanding of the discrepancies between figures based upon administrative data based methods and survey estimates, the two main data sources, by combining a review of the Lin et al. (2008) study and further field studies in four countries.
Susie Cooper and Magnar Lillegård reviewed the Lim et al. (2008) article focusing on statistical methodology. Ellen Cathrine Kiøsterud conducted the field study in Mozambique, Stein Opdahl in Zambia, Marianne Tønnessen in Malawi and Anja Hem in Uganda. Jon Erik Finnvold supplied subject matter input and Dag Roll-Hansen coordinated the effort.
Statistics Norway is grateful to the Norwegian development agency Norad who initiated and funded the study.