© 2002 American Public Health Association
All of the authors are with the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Matthew M. Davis is with the Child Health Evaluation and Research (CHEAR) Unit, Division of General Pediatrics, and the Division of General Internal Medicine. Jessica L. Zimmerman is with the CHEAR Unit. John R. C. Wheeler is with the Department of Health Management and Policy, School of Public Health. Gary L. Freed is with the CHEAR Unit and the Department of Health Management and Policy. Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Matthew M. Davis, MD, MAPP, Division of General Pediatrics, University of Michigan, 300 North Ingalls Building, Room 6C23, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-0456 (e-mail: mattdav{at}umich.edu).
Objectives. We examined recent public-sector trends in childhood vaccine costs and estimated future costs. Methods. We used public-sector price data to calculate vaccine purchase cost per child for children aged 0 to 6 years from 1975 to 2001. We fit a linear regression model to historical data and then used it to project costs per child from 2002 to 2020, adjusted to 2001 US dollars. Results. Controlling for inflation, the cost of vaccine purchase per child climbed from $10 in 1975 to $385 in 2001. The cost of vaccine purchase in the year 2020 following recommendation of 7 additional vaccines is estimated to be $1225 per child (95% confidence interval = $891, $1559). Conclusions. The cost per child for recommended vaccines at public-sector prices may triple over the next 2 decades. These projections have implications for vaccine financing at federal and state levels.
The use of vaccines has greatly reduced the morbidity and mortality attributable to several childhood diseases.1 Childhood vaccinations remain some of the most favorable and cost-effective prevention strategies available.2,3 Federal and state programs help ensure delivery of the vaccines recommended by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to American Indian and Alaska Native children, as well as to children who have public health insurance (Medicaid or state child health insurance extensions of Medicaid), no health insurance, or insurance with incomplete vaccine coverage.4 The federal Vaccines for Children (VFC) program purchases vaccines recommended by ACIP for administration to program-eligible children, currently approximately 35% of the national birth cohort,5 at a cost that exceeded $500 million for fiscal year 2000.4 State programs purchase and deliver vaccines to children besides those entitled to VFC-purchased vaccines, and receive funding through grants from the federal Section 317 (childhood immunization) program as well as from state appropriations. Overall, more than half of all childhood vaccine doses in the United States are purchased in the public sector.4 The number of vaccines recommended for universal administration to children has climbed steadily in the past 15 years.618 As a result, federal and state governments bear a growing cost burden to vaccinate children. With the addition of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) to the consensus vaccine schedule for childhood vaccinations in 2001,6 the cost of purchasing vaccines for a child at public-sector prices nearly doubled.19 Furthermore, recent Institute of Medicine (IOM) panels reported that several new vaccines may be recommended for children by 2020.4,20 The recent increases in vaccine purchase costs are a major concern for public-sector vaccination efforts, but the financial and programmatic implications of these projections for vaccine purchase costs in the public sector have not been well characterized. We conducted an analysis of trends in childhood vaccine costs in the public sector over the past 25 years, adjusting for inflation. We then used these historical data to estimate future costs for purchase of childhood vaccines in the public sector by 2020.
Childhood Vaccination Schedules Vaccine recommendations for the years 1975 to 2001618,21 were reviewed to identify typical patterns of provision of recommended vaccines for children up through age 6 years. Vaccines considered included oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV), inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV), measlesmumpsrubella vaccine (MMR), diphtheria and tetanus toxoids and whole-cell pertussis vaccine (DTP), diphtheria and tetanus toxoids and acellular pertussis vaccine (DTaP), Haemophilus influenzae type b vaccine (Hib), hepatitis B vaccine (HBV), varicella vaccine (Var), and PCV. We also considered new combination vaccines such as DTP/Hib, DTaP/Hib, and Hib/HBV, which combine antigens that previously were offered only separately during the period of study. MMR and DTP represent antigen combinations that were available before the period of analysis. During several years from 1975 to 2001, providers could choose among different patterns of provision for recommended vaccine series. For those years, we identified different combinations of vaccine series that represented feasible and common approaches to vaccinating children. Two vaccines mentioned in ACIP recommendations were not included in these analyses. Rotavirus vaccine was added to ACIP recommendations in 19997 but removed in 20008 before the establishment of a federal contract price. Hepatitis A vaccine is recommended for administration to children only in areas of the United States where hepatitis A is endemic,22 rather than nationwide like the other vaccines in the current schedule.6
Public-Sector Vaccine Purchase Prices Although DTP was recommended before 1975,21 a federal contract price was not set until 1985. Our perspective is that of vaccines purchased at public-sector prices, so for the purposes of describing time trends in costs we have treated DTP in 1985 as a change in childhood vaccine recommendations.
Cumulative Vaccine Purchase Costs We calculated any change in the cumulative cost of vaccines attributable to a specific change in vaccine recommendations ("attributable change in cost") as the difference between the total cumulative cost in the year of change and the cumulative cost of all vaccine series exclusive of the new vaccine.
Models of Cumulative Vaccine Purchase Costs To estimate future cumulative vaccine costs, we relied principally on 2 IOM reports4,20 that project that as many as 7 additional vaccines (each with anticipated cost-effectiveness of no more than $100 000 per quality-adjusted life-year gained) will be universally recommended for young children by the year 2020: Helicobacter pylori, hepatitis C, influenza, parainfluenza, respiratory syncytial virus, rotavirus, and group A streptococcus. According to the Jordan Report 2000 of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases,24 as of the year 2000 these 7 noncombination vaccines were in various stages of development ranging from preclinical research to phase 3 trials. Two combination vaccines may be recommended as well: Var/MMR4 and a pentavalent vaccine directed against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, and hepatitis B that is currently in phase 3 trials.25 Given reasonable uncertainty about how many childhood vaccines will be recommended in the next 2 decades, we used the regression model based on historical cost data to estimate the cumulative vaccine purchase cost per child for the years 2002 to 2020 in 3 scenarios reflecting the recommendation of 3, 5, or 7 noncombination vaccines. The recommendation of 7 new vaccines over 2 decades is most similar to the rate of new recommendations in the years 1991 to 2001. Therefore, to examine the variation in costs associated with the recommendation of new vaccines at different rates over time, we estimated the annual cumulative vaccine purchase cost per child for the years 2002 to 2020 in 3 scenarios of the introduction of 7 vaccines: (1) an "even" scenario recommending 1 new noncombination vaccine every 2 to 3 years from 2002 to 2020; (2) an "early" scenario recommending 5 new noncombination vaccines by 2011, and then 2 additional vaccines by 2020; and (3) a "late" scenario recommending 2 noncombination vaccines by 2011, followed by a new vaccine every other year until 2020. For all 3 scenarios, we also estimated cumulative costs with and without the introduction of 2 new combination vaccines, 1 in 2008 and 1 in 2016. All analyses were conducted with Stata 6.0 (Stata Corp, College Station, Tex).
Historical Trends in Childhood Vaccine Purchase Costs All findings are reported adjusting for inflation from 1975 to 2001. As shown in Figure 1
The increases in purchase costs attributable to changes in vaccine recommendations are presented in Figure 2
The overall mean rate of increase in cumulative vaccine purchase cost per child from 1975 to 2001 was 19% per year. For only the years in which a change in vaccine recommendations occurred, the mean rate of increase in cumulative cost per child was 35% per year.
Models of Cumulative Purchase Costs
Estimates of future cumulative costs for purchase of childhood vaccines at publicsector prices, derived from the regression model, illustrate the effects of the potential introduction of 3, 5, or 7 new noncombination vaccines by 2020 (Figure 3
The pace at which new vaccines are potentially introduced in the next 2 decades affects the short-term purchase costs that federal and state vaccine policymakers may face, as illustrated in the 7-vaccine introduction model (Figure 4
Our analysis of public-sector vaccine price data reveals that the costs of childhood vaccine purchases over the last 25 years have grown at a mean rate of 19% per year, adjusted for inflation. Much of this growth is due to the addition of new and higher-priced vaccines to the recommended schedule; changes in vaccine recommendations increased purchase costs by 35% per year on average in each of the years they occurred. Moreover, our estimates of future vaccine costs suggest that vaccine purchase expenditures for each child at public-sector prices may triple by 2020 beyond the effects of inflation as the number of recommended vaccines doubles. We emphasize that our projections of future expenditures are conservative estimates that reflect the lowest possible purchase costs for childhood vaccines at public-sector contract prices. Whereas federal contract prices for childhood vaccines that have been used longer (HBV, Hib) are discounted > 60% over private-sector levels, public-sector prices for more recently recommended vaccines (PCV, Var) have been set at approximately 20% below private-sector prices.19 If this trend continues, vaccine purchase costs per child may exceed our projections. The total cost borne by federal and state government immunization programs also includes expenditures associated with excise taxes, vaccine distribution, clinic visit costs, nursing time, vaccine preparation, vaccine administration, and storage of vaccine.4,26 However, other investigators models of overall costs associated with vaccination have been most sensitive to changes in vaccine purchase costs,26 which suggests that future modifications to cumulative purchase costs will be the major determinants of changes in overall childhood vaccine program expenditures. Therefore, our models of vaccine purchase expenditures have immediate relevance and applicability to current policy decisions, and have implications for the future financing of vaccination programs. Although concerns about increasing vaccination costs are certainly not limited to the public sector, we have chosen to focus on public-sector expenditures because of the prominent role of government vaccination programs in purchasing vaccines for more than half of all children in the United States.4
Applicability of Models to Policymaking Our models allow policymakers to estimate the likely annual effects of changes in vaccine recommendations and to anticipate changes over the next 5, 10, and 20 years. Legislators, vaccine program officials, and advocacy groups may also use the models to examine the range of possible vaccine purchase costs per child, given different scenarios of introduction of new recommendations.
Future Vaccine Financing At the state level, steadily increasing vaccine purchase costs may have quite different effects. When PCV was introduced, several state immunization officials expressed concern about whether state legislatures would be willing or able to increase funding for vaccine purchasing to the level necessary to serve children not eligible for VFC-purchased vaccines.27 Although our model suggests that PCV is unusually expensive from an historical perspective, our estimates indicate that state lawmakers will be facing increases of $60 to $100 per child (in 2001 US dollars) for each newly recommended vaccine series in the next 2 decades. States ability to cope with such increases for childhood vaccine purchasing may depend upon securing federal Section 317 program grants, which are typically used for a combination of vaccine purchasing and program infrastructure. The IOM has recommended that the Section 317 program be modified so that it uses a formula grant mechanism that reflects states needs.4 Our findings suggest that the Section 317 formula may also need to take into account the necessary balance of infrastructure and vaccine purchasing at the state level so that increasing vaccine purchase costs will not consume funds designated for the infrastructure necessary for delivery of vaccines to children.
Public Versus Private Burden of Vaccine Costs More generally, mounting vaccine costs may lead to increasing scrutiny among public and private purchasers about the costeffectiveness of vaccines, which to this point have remained some of the most costeffective interventions available in health care and public health.2,3 Cost-effectiveness analyses of 2 recently recommended vaccines reveal societal savings for Var29 and societal costs of $80 000 per life-year gained for PCV30 when both direct medical costs and indirect costs (e.g., parents time lost from work as a result of childrens illness) are considered. Although cost-saving vaccines may generally engender support in state legislatures when vaccination program appropriations are considered, state funding for the purchase of vaccines with less favorable cost-effectiveness ratios may be less consistent.27
Study Limitations
Costs of purchasing vaccines for children in the public sector will continue to increase over the next 2 decades. 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. This dramatic increase in costs has serious implications for the structure and function of state vaccination programs and the vaccination status of the children served by those programs. We hope that a better understanding of the future of vaccine purchasing will help todays scientists and policymakers plan for continued success in vaccinating children tomorrow.
The authors thank Robert H. Snyder of the CDC for providing public-sector vaccine price data.
Human Participant Protection
M. M. Davis planned the study, collected and analyzed the data, and wrote the article. J. L. Zimmerman assisted with study planning, data analysis, and data presentation, and contributed to the writing of the article. J. R. C. Wheeler supervised data analysis and contributed to the writing of the article. G. L. Freed supervised study planning and contributed to the writing of the article. Accepted for publication February 27, 2002.
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29. Lieu TA, Cochi SL, Black SB, et al. Costeffectiveness of a routine varicella vaccination program for US children. JAMA. 1994;271:375381. 30. Black S, Lieu TA, Ray GT, Capra A, Shinefield HR. Assessing costs and cost effectiveness of pneumococcal disease and vaccination within Kaiser Permanente. Vaccine. 2000;19(suppl):S83S86. This article has been cited by other articles:
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