Preventing infections through immunization helps ensure health equity across populations, regardless of wealth status

A group of experts evaluated a number of maternal, neonatal, and child health interventions for equity across wealth quintiles using data from 1990-2006. Immunization was found to have the narrowest differences in coverage of services between the poorest and wealthiest children (28% higher coverage in the highest wealth quintile compared to the lowest). By contrast, indicators of treatment coverage for children sick with diarrhea and pneumonia were nearly 60% higher in the highest wealth quintile compared to the poorest. This means that poor children are at a much greater disadvantage with respect to receiving treatment for pneumonia and diarrhea than they are for receiving vaccines to prevent these infections.