First dose COVID-19 vaccine coverage amongst adolescents and children in England | Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science

Paper information

Authors: Lisa Hopcroft,

Helen Curtis,

Andrew Brown,

Will Hulme,

Colm Andrews,

Caroline Morton,

Peter Inglesby,

Jess Morley,

Amir Mehrkar,

Seb Bacon,

Rosalind Eggo,

Viyaasan Mahalingasivam,

Edward Parker,

Laurie Tomlinson,

Chris Bates,

Jonathan Cockburn,

John Parry,

Frank Hester,

Sam Harper,

Ben Goldacre,

Alex Walker,

Brian MacKenna
Citation: Hopcroft LE, Curtis HJ, Brown AD et al. First dose COVID-19 vaccine coverage amongst adolescents and children in England: an analysis of 3.21 million patients' primary care records in situ using OpenSAFELY. Wellcome Open Res 2023; 8:70.
DOI: 10.12688/wellcomeopenres.18735.1
Categories: OpenSAFELY

Abstract

Background

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination programme in England was extended to include all adolescents and children by April 2022. The aim of this paper is to describe trends and variation in vaccine coverage in different clinical and demographic groups amongst adolescents and children in England.

Methods

With the approval of NHS England, a cohort study was conducted of 3.21 million children and adolescents’ records in general practice in England, in situ and within the infrastructure of the electronic health record software vendor TPP using OpenSAFELY. Vaccine coverage across various demographic (sex, deprivation index and ethnicity) and clinical (risk status) populations is described.

Results

Coverage is higher amongst adolescents than it is amongst children, with 53.5% adolescents and 10.8% children having received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Within those groups, coverage varies by ethnicity, deprivation index and risk status; there is no evidence of variation by sex.

Conclusion

First dose COVID-19 vaccine coverage is shown to vary amongst various demographic and clinical groups of children and adolescents.