Vaccination coverage of adolescents: Results of a Defense and Citizenship Day-based survey

Vaccination coverage among French young adults is not routinely measured. Every French adolescent aged between 16 and 18years must take part in the Defense and Citizenship Day (French acronym JDC). We aimed to assess vaccination coverage among young adults for hepatitis B, group C meningococcus meningitis, human papillomavirus (HPV), and measles. We also aimed to assess the proportion of adolescents who received the pertussis booster between the age of 11 and 13years.

The survey took place from January 19th to 26th, 2015 at the JDC center of Rennes, France. Vaccination coverage data was collected on site from the adolescents' health records. We collected the number of doses received and the dates of administration for each type of vaccine. A properly vaccinated adolescent was defined as having received the right number of doses according to the vaccination schedule.

A total of 467 adolescents attended the JDC Day: 408 (87.4%) had brought their health record or an equivalent document. Vaccination coverage was 92.6% [90.1-95.1] for measles, 34.6% [30-39.2] for group C meningococcus meningitis, 40.7% [35.9-45.5] for hepatitis B, and 30.1% [23.9-36.3] of girls had been vaccinated against HPV. Of all adolescents, 60.1% [55.7-64.9] received a dose of the pertussis vaccine between 11 and 13years of age.

Our results are similar to those of other data sources. With regard to the difficulty of assessing vaccination coverage in that age group, we believe recruitment bias was minimized due to our study location.