The intangible benefits of vaccination – what is the true economic value of vaccination?

Previous economic evaluations of new vaccines largely focussed on a narrow set of benefit categories, including primarily health gains and disease-related medical cost-savings, which probably resulted in underestimates of the true value of these vaccines. Other economic benefits of vaccines could be considered to assess the full economic value of vaccination, such as, for example, impact of the human papillomavirus vaccine on women's fertility through the decrease in precancerous lesions and, therefore, in the number of diagnostic and treatment interventions, which can be associated with an increased risk of subsequent pregnancy complications. Vaccines’ impact on resource allocation at hospital level or on antimicrobial resistance, such as pneumococcal conjugate vaccines that have substantially reduced infections due to antimicrobial non-susceptible strains, thereby rendering the residual disease easier to treat, are other examples of intangible benefits of vaccination. These benefits are generally not considered in economic evaluations because they may not be immediately visible and are difficult to quantify. However, they should be taken into consideration in health technology assessments to enable those responsible for healthcare policies to make well-informed decisions on vaccination.