Article ID: | iaor20053180 |
Country: | United States |
Volume: | 2 |
Issue: | 1 |
Start Page Number: | 15 |
End Page Number: | 19 |
Publication Date: | Feb 2003 |
Journal: | Expert Review of Vaccines |
Authors: | Jacobson Sheldon H., Sewell Edward C., Weniger Bruce G., Allwine Daniel A., Medina Enrique A. |
Keywords: | vaccination |
The National Immunization Program, housed within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the USA, has identified several challenges that must be faced in childhood immunization programs to deliver and procure vaccines that immunize children from the plethora of childhood diseases. The biomedical issues cited include how drug manufacturers can combine and formulate vaccines, how such vaccines are scheduled and administered and how economically sound vaccine procurement can be achieved. This review discusses how operations research models can be used to address the economics of pediatric vaccine formulary design and pricing, as well as how such models can be used to address a new set of pediatric formulary problems that will surface with the introduction of pediatric combination vaccines into the US pediatric immunization market.