Moving beyond traditional valuation of vaccination: Needs and opportunities

Economic evaluations of vaccination traditionally focus on a relatively narrow set of vaccine benefits, such as averted medical care costs among those who are immunized. In recent years, researchers have identified additional vaccination benefits that should be incorporated into economic evaluations in order to reflect vaccination's full value. Early efforts to estimate the magnitude of these broader benefits suggest that vaccination has been substantially undervalued, which has important implications for public and private vaccine policy and human health and welfare. More and better data will be required to advance this emerging line of research on the value of vaccination. The article discusses promising data sources and methods and research questions needing to be addressed.