Childhood vaccination has become the single greatest defense against infectious diseases among children in the United States. Moreover, biotechnology breakthroughs are making it possible for vaccine manufacturers to develop vaccine antigens for numerous diseases. One unforeseen consequence of such innovations is that the recommended childhood immunization schedule (as set forth by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices) has become sufficiently crowded that the prospect of adding additional vaccines to this schedule may not be well received by either health-care providers or parents/guardians. Moreover, health-care decision-makers are being faced with an overwhelming number of choices, with no methodological basis for comparing and evaluating their different vaccine selection options. To address these issues, operations research models and algorithms will formulated to capture the key features of the recommended childhood immunization schedule, as well as the restrictions and requirements as set forth in the national recommended childhood immunization schedule. These decision-making tools will provide health-care administrators with a means to address a variety of important pediatric immunization problems, including the vaccine completion problem, the limited budget problem, and the parent/guardian balking problem.
If successful, the models and algorithms developed under this research will provide rigorous formulations for describing a wide variety of pediatric immunization issues. The new models and algorithms obtained will be used to obtain fundamental insights into the public health policies surrounding pediatric immunization and the challenges that must be overcome for health-care decision-makers to be equipped to deal with them. The results of this research will also provide quantitative tools for comparing and evaluating pediatric vaccine formularies necessary to satisfy the recommended childhood immunization schedule. These tools will not only be of value in assessing the current state of pediatric immunization, but also have the potential to be applied to determine the ideal set of new vaccine combinations that should be developed, and to measure the tractability of new immunization policies and requirements for health-care decision-makers. The results of this effort may then lead to higher immunization rates, given the set of vaccine choices available. This research will be conducted in collaboration with personnel within the National Immunization Program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
