BackgroundSince 2011 public concerns about Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination safety and efficacy arose in France. We explored the relevance of using vaccines reimbursement data to assess the impact of those public concerns on vaccination coverage.MethodsWe used the Permanent Sample of Beneficiaries which was, at the time of the study, a representative sample of 1/97th health insurance beneficiaries of the main Social Security scheme, the General Health Insurance Scheme, covering approximately 77 % of the French resident population. We estimated HPV vaccination coverage among girls born between 1995 and 1999 at their 15th, 16th and 17th birthday.ResultsThe coverage for complete vaccination among 16 years old girls decreased from 26.5 % in the first semester of 2011 to 18.6 % in the first semester of 2014.ConclusionsHPV vaccination coverage was already low in 2011 and continued to decrease thereafter. Vaccines reimbursement data allowed us to reactively monitor the impact of the controversy on vaccination coverage and design counteracting measures.

This novel routine vaccination coverage monitoring tool provides regularly updated reactive and reliable vaccination coverage estimates in children.

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