Effectiveness and acceptability of parental financial incentives and quasi-mandatory schemes for increasing uptake of vaccinations in preschool children: systematic review, qualitative study and discrete choice experiment.

Adams J, et al. (2015)

Health Technology Assessment - 10.3310/hta19940

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Evidence Categories

• Care setting: Secondary Care
• Care setting: Community setting
• Care setting: Primary care
• Population group: Parents/carers
• Intervention: Other Intervention
• Intervention: Incentives / Competitions
• Outcome: Adverse Effects
• Outcome: Change in vaccination rates
• Outcome: Changes to parent/patient attitudes or beliefs
• Outcome: Other

Type of Evidence

Systematic Review

Aims

To provide evidence on the effectiveness, acceptability and economic costs and consequences of parental financial incentives and quasi-mandatory schemes for increasing the uptake of preschool vaccinations.

Findings

The review included studies exploring the effectiveness, acceptability or economic costs and consequences of interventions that offered contingent rewards or penalties with real material value for preschool vaccinations, or quasi-mandatory schemes that restricted access to ‘universal’ services, compared with usual care or no intervention.
Systematic review – there was insufficient evidence to conclude that the interventions considered are effective. There was some evidence that the quasi-mandatory interventions were acceptable. There was insufficient evidence to draw conclusions on economic costs and consequences.
 

Conclusions

There is little current evidence on the effectiveness or economic costs and consequences of parental financial incentives and quasi-mandatory interventions for preschool vaccinations. 
Universal incentives are likely to be more acceptable than targeted ones. Preferences concerning incentives versus quasi-mandatory interventions may depend on the context in which these are elicited.