The most common reasons for low vaccination take-up rates, which are similar across most high-income countries in the context of influenza vaccines, are lack of recommendation by healthcare providers, lack of knowledge (including misconceptions) about influenza and influenza vaccines, concerns about vaccine efficacy and side effects, and lack of opportunities for vaccination.
Associate Professor Hsu Li Yang, Programme Leader (Infectious Diseases), and Associate Professor Alex Cook, Vice Dean (Research), suggest a multipronged approach to improve adult vaccination coverage in Singapore.
These include running recurrent, consistent and targeted education campaigns to address major misconceptions; developing or extending current mobile health apps for personalised vaccination reminders and information; and encouraging primary care physicians to recommend vaccinations for their patients.
They also suggested incorporating vaccinations into workplace health initiatives to increase the ease for adults to be vaccinated. They noted that this has worked very well in healthcare institutions locally with regards to staff vaccination, and should be extended more widely to other non-healthcare workplaces.
Finally, A/Profs Hsu and Cook suggested adopting a conceptual framework promoted by the World Health Organization to take a life-course approach to vaccination. This considers the benefits of vaccinations and maximises their uptake for all age and risks groups, rather than splitting into childhood and adult vaccinations as is currently the case.
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