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definition of "valid dates" for vaccination coverage [message #4324] Fri, 08 May 2015 09:15 Go to next message
rtperry is currently offline  rtperry
Messages: 1
Registered: May 2015
Member
I have a question about the definition of an indicator appearing in many reports and the Stat Compiler that is not mentioned in the various DHS manuals on datasets, indicators, recoding, etc. I am concerned about the proportion of children who are immunized too early with certain vaccinations. In country DHS reports one often sees in the table "Vaccination by source of information" the line "valid dates". This indicator is also available through the Stat Compiler.
I would be grateful for your help in clarifying the definition of this indicator. It could either refer to the validity of the date itself or to the validity of the vaccination.
Validity of date: a vaccination card with "valid" dates, that is dates with year / month / date information that corresponds to a valid date (for example, a date before the child's birthday or a date of Feb 31 would not be a valid date).
Validity of vaccination: a vaccination given on a date that makes the vaccination "valid", such as before 6 weeks of age for DTP1 or before 9m of age for measles vaccine.

Thanks for your help with this question!
Re: definition of "valid dates" for vaccination coverage [message #4381 is a reply to message #4324] Sun, 17 May 2015 17:59 Go to previous message
Trevor-DHS is currently offline  Trevor-DHS
Messages: 787
Registered: January 2013
Senior Member
Actually this isn't really an indicator and shouldn't really be included in the final reports or in STATcompiler. It is used in the calculation of vaccinations given in the first year of life, and merely indicates whether it is possible to determine if the vaccination was given in the first year of life or not.

For example, if the year of birth was 2010 and a vaccination date was given with the year 2010 then we know it was given in the first year of life. Similarly if the vaccination date was given as 2012 or later we know it was not given in the first year of life. For both of these cases we can determine if the vaccination was given in the first year, and we consider these "valid" for the calculation of vaccines given in the first year of life.

However, if the year of vaccination was 2011 then we also need to know the month of birth and month of vaccination to determine if it was given in the first year of life. If, say, the month of birth was July 2010, then a vaccination given in January through June of 2011 were given in the first year of life and are considered "valid". Similarly those given in August through December 2011 are considered "valid" as they were not given in the first year of life. If the month of vaccination is not know or is missing then the vaccination date is not considered "valid". If the month of vaccination was the same as the month of birth (July), then we need to look further at the day of birth to determine if the vaccination date is "valid", and if the vaccination date was not known or missing then the vaccination date is not considered valid for this calculation.
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