Investigation of the representativeness of the German IQVIA Vaccine Analyzer database

ABSTRACT

Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate the representativeness of the German IQVIA Vaccine Analyzer (VA) database with respect to vaccination rates in Germany. Materials and methods: Descriptive statistics for the demographic characteristics of the patients like gender and age distribution and vaccination rates of various types of vaccinations in children, adolescents, and adults were calculated and compared to official data sources in Germany. The vaccination rates were calculated as the ratio between extrapolated vaccinated patient numbers from the database and official population counts from the Federal Statistical Office. Results: The sex distribution for patients attending general practitioners (GPs) and those attending pediatricians was similar to the German population. The age distribution of the adult German population was comparable to that of the GP and gynecologist patients included in our study. There was good agreement between vaccination rates for diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, and poliomyelitis in this study (79%) and the rates for the general population according to official sources (78%). HPV vaccination rates in boys in 2018/2019 (1.9%) were also close to the German national rate of 1.3% of all boys reported at the end of 2018. This study found slightly higher vaccination rates for influenza in adults aged over 60 (46%) than the national rate (39%). Conclusion: The study indicates good accordance between the VA and official reference data for different vaccination rates, especially for children, and indicates that the VA database is suitable for epidemiological studies on vaccines.