Use of community engagement interventions to improve child immunisation in low‐ and middle‐income countries: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

Immunisation is one of the most cost‐effective interventions to prevent and control life‐threatening infectious diseases. Nonetheless, rates of routine vaccination of children in low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMICs) are strikingly low or stagnant. In 2019, an estimated 19.7 million infants did not receive routine immunisations. Community engagement interventions are increasingly being emphasised in international and national policy frameworks as a means to improve immunisation coverage and reach marginalised communities. This systematic review examines the effectiveness and cost‐effectiveness of community engagement interventions on outcomes related to childhood immunisation in LMICs and identifies contextual, design and implementation features that may be associated with effectiveness. We identified 61 quantitative and mixed methods impact evaluations and 47 associated qualitative studies related to community engagement interventions for inclusion in the reteview. For cost‐effectiveness analysis 14 of the 61 studies had the needed combination of cost and effectiveness data. The 61 included impact evaluations were concentrated in South Asia and Sub‐Saharan Africa and spread across 19 LMICs. The review found that community engagement interventions had a small but significant, positive effect on all primary immunisation outcomes related to coverage and their timeliness. The findings are robust to exclusion of studies assessed as high risk of bias. Qualitative evidence indicates appropriate intervention design, including building in community engagement features; addressing common contextual barriers of immunisation and leveraging facilitators; and accounting for existing implementation constraints and practicalities on the ground are consistently cited as reasons for intervention success. Among the studies for which we were able to calculate cost‐effectiveness, we find that the median non‐vaccine cost per dose of intervention to increase immunisation coverage by 1% was US $3.68. Given the broad scope of the review in terms of interventions and outcomes, there is significant variation in findings. Among the various types of community engagement interventions, those that involve creation of community buy‐in or development of new cadres of community‐based structures were found to have consistent positive effect on more primary vaccination coverage outcomes than if the engagement is limited to the design or delivery of an intervention or is a combination of the various types. The evidence base for sub‐group analysis for female children was sparse (only two studies) and the effect on coverage of both full immunisation and third dose of diphtheria pertussis tetanus for this group was insignificant.