Adult Vaccination for Preventing Communicable Diseases in an Urban Community of Delhi

Introduction: Vaccination is a cornerstone of public health; significantlyreducing the burden of infectious diseases. While childhood immunisationprogrammes have made substantial progress, adult vaccination oftenreceives less attention.Objective: To assess the knowledge, attitudes, and practices concerningadult vaccination against infectious diseases among adults of an urbancommunity in DelhiMethods: Systematic random sampling was used to collect the requiredsample from an urban community. Data collection was done by usinga self-designed pre-tested and pre-validated questionnaire. Datawas entered and analysed in Microsoft Excel software for statisticalprocessing and suitably presented. To determine the association,the chi-square test was employed. A p value of less than 0.05 wasconsidered significant.Results: The awareness regarding adult vaccination against communicablediseases was as high as 87%. Tetanus vaccine was the most commonlyknown (89%), followed by rabies (68%), hepatitis B (58%), influenza(21%) and pneumococcus (11%). 84% had received any vaccine duringadulthood, tetanus being the most commonly received (83%). Lack ofknowledge about the other available vaccines and lack of prescription byhealthcare providers were identified as the major barriers to vaccination.Conclusion: A high level of awareness and good acceptance was therefor a few vaccines. Therefore, IEC for other vaccines for infectiousdiseases may be used in urban communities to generate demand. Priyanka, Srivastava N, Kishore J. Adult Vaccinationfor Preventing Communicable Diseases in anUrban Community of Delhi. J Commun Dis.2024;56(4):158-165. DOI: https://doi.org/10.24321/0019.5138.202487