Collaborative Research: Pediatric Vaccine Formulary Optimization and Analysis

在美国，儿童接种疫苗已成为儿童抵御传染病的唯一最有力的手段。此外，生物技术的突破使疫苗制造商能够开发针对许多疾病的疫苗抗原。这种创新的一个不可预见的后果是，建议的儿童免疫接种时间表（由免疫做法咨询委员会制定）已经变得足够拥挤，以至于在该时间表中增加额外疫苗的前景可能不会得到保健提供者或父母/监护人的欢迎。此外，卫生保健决策者面临着大量的选择，没有方法基础来比较和评价他们不同的疫苗选择方案。为了解决这些问题，将制定运筹学模型和算法，以捕捉推荐的儿童免疫计划的主要特征，以及国家推荐的儿童免疫计划中规定的限制和要求。这些决策工具将为卫生保健管理人员提供一种手段，以解决各种重要的儿科免疫问题，包括疫苗接种完成问题、预算有限问题和父母/监护人犹豫不决问题。如果成功，在这项研究下开发的模型和算法将为描述各种儿科免疫问题提供严格的公式。获得的新模型和算法将用于获得有关儿童免疫接种的公共卫生政策的基本见解，以及卫生保健决策者必须克服的挑战，以便有能力应对这些挑战。这项研究的结果还将为比较和评估满足建议的儿童免疫计划所需的儿科疫苗配方提供定量工具。这些工具不仅在评估儿科免疫现状方面具有价值，而且有可能用于确定应开发的一套理想的新疫苗组合，并衡量卫生保健决策者对新的免疫政策和要求的可追踪性。考虑到现有的疫苗选择，这一努力的结果可能会导致更高的免疫接种率。本研究将与疾病控制和预防中心（CDC）国家免疫规划的人员合作进行。

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).