Barriers to immunization among newcomers
Citation: Wilson L, Rubens-Augustson T, Murphy M, et al. Barriers to immunization among newcomers: A systematic review. Vaccine. 2018 Feb 14;36(8):1055-62.
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What is this? Newcomers in a country, including immigrants, refugees, migrant workers and students, often experience difficulty in accessing health services such as immunization.
In this systematic review, the authors searched for qualitative studies examining the decision making of newcomers about vaccination. They did not restrict their searches by date or language of publication and did the search in May 2017. They included 21 studies, which collected data in Australia (1 study), Canada (2), Hong Kong (1), the Netherlands (1), Sweden (1), UK (2) and USA (14).
What was found: Four identified categories of barriers to the vaccination of newcomers were cultural factors, knowledge barriers, insufficient access to healthcare and vaccine hesitancy.
The most commonly reported barriers to vaccination among newcomers were lack of knowledge regarding vaccination (and the associated virus) and safety concerns.
The major barriers to HPV vaccination among newcomers included cultural beliefs regarding sexuality and insufficient knowledge about the role of HPV in the development of cervical cancer.
This summary was prepared by Joly Ghanawi, edited by Sydney Johnson and finalized by Mike Clarke.