Nearly a third of eligible Americans remain unvaccinated as the delta variant surges across the United States. With vaccine hesitancy increasingly impacting the health of the population, a new study from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine compares the projected outcomes of three vaccine strategies: a patient opts for a messenger RNA vaccine; a patient decides to get an adenovirus vector vaccine; or the patient simply forgoes a vaccine altogether.
"People have choices among the various vaccines and whether to get vaccinated at all," says Mark Eckman, MD, director and professor in the UC Division of General Internal Medicine and lead author of the study. "We wanted to try to bring a little bit of data to what can be a very vexing question, both for individuals and for physicians, too."
The researchers used a computerized decision analytic model to compare projected outcomes of the choices.
"We used an outcome measure called 'quality adjusted life years.' This is a way to measure both the duration of survival or life expectancy, as well as quality of life in different health states. We've got one common measure to compare outcomes for all three strategies."
The study findings are available online in the scholarly journal Medical Decision Making Policy & Practice.
"The important point is that both types of vaccines are better than no vaccine," says Eckman. "If we take a public health perspective by multiplying that gain over the vaccine eligible population, it results in a large net benefit for the nation."
Joining Cincinnati Edition to discuss the study is University of Cincinnati Division of General Internal Medicine Director and Professor Mark Eckman, MD.
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