Routine childhood vaccination rates in an academic family health team before and during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic: a pre-post analysis of a retrospective chart review.

BACKGROUND

There has been concern about declining routine vaccination rates during the COVID-19 pandemic. We evaluated the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on early childhood vaccination rates at 2 sites of an academic family health team in the Greater Toronto Area, Ontario, serving both an urban and suburban patient population.

METHODS

We conducted a pre-post analysis of vaccination records from Jan. 1, 2018, to Nov. 30, 2020, for a cohort of children born between Jan. 1, 2018, and Aug. 31, 2020, from the electronic medical record (EMR) of the Mount Sinai Academic Family Health Team (including an urban academic site in Toronto and a suburban community site in Vaughan, Ontario). We estimated the proportion of children receiving timely, delayed or no vaccination for 10 publicly funded vaccines in the Ontario immunization schedule for the pre-COVID-19 (Jan. 1, 2018, to Mar. 16, 2020) and COVID-19 (Mar. 17 to Nov. 30, 2020) pandemic periods. We determined timeliness in accordance with the recommended age of administration, with a 28-day window; we considered vaccines administered after this window to be delayed. We estimated the median time to vaccination for each vaccine and present cumulative incidence curves.

RESULTS

The patient population was balanced between boys (52.4%) and girls (47.6%), with an average age of 18.5 months and representation across low-, middle- and high-income groups. Of the 506 children in our cohort, 422 were up to date with vaccinations (83.4%) by the end of the study period. Comparatively, 308 (83.2%) of the 370 eligible patients were up to date for all required vaccinations by the end of the pre-COVID-19 period. Among children younger than 12 months, vaccination rates were similar in the pre-COVID-19 and COVID-19 pandemic periods. Lower rates of timely vaccination for children between 12 and 18 months of age were amplified during the pandemic. Cumulative incidence curves were suggestive of a decrease in the timeliness of vaccinations in the COVID-19 period for the vaccines administered at 12, 15 and 18 months, compared with the pre-COVID-19 period.

INTERPRETATION

Our local findings suggest a deterioration in the uptake of routine childhood vaccines in children aged 12 to 18 months in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Further study is needed to determine the extent of the vaccination gap in children across Canada, including the impact of subsequent waves of the COVID-19 pandemic.