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Factors contributing to the uptake of childhood vaccination in Galkayo District, Puntland, Somalia

BACKGROUND: As in many Sub-Saharan African countries, the health system in Somalia is not operating at the capacity needed to lift childhood vaccination coverage to ninety percent or above, as recommended by United Nations Children’s Fund. Current national estimates of coverage for the six major vac...

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Autores principales: Abdullahi, Mohamed Farah, Stewart Williams, Jennifer, Sahlèn, Klas-Göran, Bile, Khalif, Kinsman, John
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Taylor & Francis 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7480419/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32847489
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/16549716.2020.1803543
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author Abdullahi, Mohamed Farah
Stewart Williams, Jennifer
Sahlèn, Klas-Göran
Bile, Khalif
Kinsman, John
author_facet Abdullahi, Mohamed Farah
Stewart Williams, Jennifer
Sahlèn, Klas-Göran
Bile, Khalif
Kinsman, John
author_sort Abdullahi, Mohamed Farah
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: As in many Sub-Saharan African countries, the health system in Somalia is not operating at the capacity needed to lift childhood vaccination coverage to ninety percent or above, as recommended by United Nations Children’s Fund. Current national estimates of coverage for the six major vaccine preventable childhood diseases range from thirty to sixty percent. Infectious disease outbreaks continue to pose significant challenges for the country’s health authorities. OBJECTIVE: This important qualitative study, conducted in Galkayo District, Somalia, investigates limiting factors associated with childhood vaccination uptake from the perspective of both communities and health care workers. METHODS: Qualitative information was collected through six focus group discussions with parents (n = 48) and five one-to-one interviews with health workers (n = 15) between March and May 2017, in three settings in the Galkayo District – Galkayo city, Bayra and Bacadwayn. RESULTS: From a health system perspective, the factors are: awareness raising, hard to reach areas, negative attitudes and perceived knowledge of health workers, inadequate supplies and infrastructure, and missed vaccination opportunities. From the perspective of individuals and communities the factors are: low trust in vaccines, misinterpretation of religious beliefs, vaccine refusals, Somalia’s patriarchal system and rumours and misinformation. Parents mostly received immunization information from social mobilizers and health facilities. Fathers, who are typically family decision-makers, were poorly informed. The findings highlight the need for in-service training to enable health workers to improve communication with parents, particularly fathers, peripheral communities and local religious leaders. CONCLUSIONS: Enhancing knowledge and awareness of vaccination among parents is crucial. Fathers’ involvement is lacking. This may be boosted by highlighting fathers’ obligation to protect their children’s health through vaccination. It is also important that men engage with the wider community in decision-making and advance towards the global vaccination targets.
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spelling pubmed-74804192020-09-16 Factors contributing to the uptake of childhood vaccination in Galkayo District, Puntland, Somalia Abdullahi, Mohamed Farah Stewart Williams, Jennifer Sahlèn, Klas-Göran Bile, Khalif Kinsman, John Glob Health Action Original Article BACKGROUND: As in many Sub-Saharan African countries, the health system in Somalia is not operating at the capacity needed to lift childhood vaccination coverage to ninety percent or above, as recommended by United Nations Children’s Fund. Current national estimates of coverage for the six major vaccine preventable childhood diseases range from thirty to sixty percent. Infectious disease outbreaks continue to pose significant challenges for the country’s health authorities. OBJECTIVE: This important qualitative study, conducted in Galkayo District, Somalia, investigates limiting factors associated with childhood vaccination uptake from the perspective of both communities and health care workers. METHODS: Qualitative information was collected through six focus group discussions with parents (n = 48) and five one-to-one interviews with health workers (n = 15) between March and May 2017, in three settings in the Galkayo District – Galkayo city, Bayra and Bacadwayn. RESULTS: From a health system perspective, the factors are: awareness raising, hard to reach areas, negative attitudes and perceived knowledge of health workers, inadequate supplies and infrastructure, and missed vaccination opportunities. From the perspective of individuals and communities the factors are: low trust in vaccines, misinterpretation of religious beliefs, vaccine refusals, Somalia’s patriarchal system and rumours and misinformation. Parents mostly received immunization information from social mobilizers and health facilities. Fathers, who are typically family decision-makers, were poorly informed. The findings highlight the need for in-service training to enable health workers to improve communication with parents, particularly fathers, peripheral communities and local religious leaders. CONCLUSIONS: Enhancing knowledge and awareness of vaccination among parents is crucial. Fathers’ involvement is lacking. This may be boosted by highlighting fathers’ obligation to protect their children’s health through vaccination. It is also important that men engage with the wider community in decision-making and advance towards the global vaccination targets. Taylor & Francis 2020-08-27 /pmc/articles/PMC7480419/ /pubmed/32847489 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/16549716.2020.1803543 Text en © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Original Article
Abdullahi, Mohamed Farah
Stewart Williams, Jennifer
Sahlèn, Klas-Göran
Bile, Khalif
Kinsman, John
Factors contributing to the uptake of childhood vaccination in Galkayo District, Puntland, Somalia
title Factors contributing to the uptake of childhood vaccination in Galkayo District, Puntland, Somalia
title_full Factors contributing to the uptake of childhood vaccination in Galkayo District, Puntland, Somalia
title_fullStr Factors contributing to the uptake of childhood vaccination in Galkayo District, Puntland, Somalia
title_full_unstemmed Factors contributing to the uptake of childhood vaccination in Galkayo District, Puntland, Somalia
title_short Factors contributing to the uptake of childhood vaccination in Galkayo District, Puntland, Somalia
title_sort factors contributing to the uptake of childhood vaccination in galkayo district, puntland, somalia
topic Original Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7480419/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32847489
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/16549716.2020.1803543
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