Inequalities in ownership and availability of home-based vaccination records in 82 low- and middle-income countries
Introduction Home-based records (HBRs) are widely used for recording health information including child immunisations. We studied levels and inequalities in HBR ownership in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) using data from national surveys conducted since 2010.Methods We used data from national household surveys (Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) and Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS)) from 82 LMICs. 465 060 children aged 6–35 months were classified into four categories: HBR seen by the interviewer; mother/caregiver never had an HBR; mother/caregiver had an HBR that was lost; and reportedly have an HBR that was not seen by the interviewer. Inequalities according to age, sex, household wealth, maternal education, antenatal care and giving birth in an institutional setting were studied, as were associations between HBR ownership and vaccine coverage. Pooled analyses were carried out using country weights based on child populations.Results An HBR was seen for 67.8%
