The vaccination programs in the Czech Republic in light of the international experience

The paper will document the historical development of vaccination programs in the Czech Republic and the variation in the immunization program's acceptance due to the change in the social model after 1989. The objective is to demonstrate in an international comparison with vaccination programs around the world, the importance of the well-designed vaccination programs with attention to supply as well as demand side of the issue.

We will use data of WHO and data provided by the Czech Institute of Healthcare Statistics to demonstrate variation in the immunization program and identify major factors behind those variations. Since the data cohorts describing immunization programs are standardized we can use WHO time series data for the comparative purposes.

We did a thorough literature review.  In addition we were able, through the examination of the change in social dynamics after the year 1989, to outline the factors which influenced changes in the vaccination coverage. We also estimated the sensitivity of the coverage to fees paid for some vaccination program.  Fees were introduced after the year 1989 and are paid by individuals at the point of service.

Preliminary results indicate that the quality of health services and user confidence in the service providers are powerful determinants of vaccination acceptance. Through interviews and examination of the communication between the focus parent groups, we have found that many parents take up the resistance to vaccination due to general mistrust of the compulsory government organized initiative. This change in the parent focus group view came about with the post 1989 changes introducing a market element to decision making at the public health care level.