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December 30, 2002
U.S. IMMUNIZATION NEWS
"Childhood Vaccine Purchase Costs in the Public Sector: Past Trends, Future Expectations" American Journal of Public Health (www.ajph.org) (12/02) Vol. 92, No. 12, P. 1982; Davis, Matthew; Freed, Gary L.; Zimmerman, Jessica L.
Researchers from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor examined recent public sector trends in the cost of childhood vaccinations to calculate future costs. For the study, the scientists studied public-sector price data to arrive at the vaccine purchase cost per child for children between ages of zero to 6 years between 1975 and 2001. They used a linear regression model to estimate the costs per child from 2002 to 2020. According to the authors, the cost of vaccine purchase per child rose from $10 in 1975 to $385 in 2001, and with the recommendation of seven additional vaccines, the cost of vaccine purchase in 2020 could soar to $1,225. "Our estimates of future costs, based upon historical data, suggest that federal and state programs may face 3 or more times the cost of vaccinating each child in 2020 than they do now, beyond the effects of inflation," the researchers noted. The increase, they said, "has serious implications for the structure and function of state vaccination programs and the vaccination status of the children served by those programs."
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