Determinants of hepatitis B vaccine uptake among pregnant Chinese women in Hong Kong

Abstract

The findings suggest that the public has insufficient awareness of hepatitis B infection in the community and that providing better information and education to the general public is necessary.

Knowledge about hepatitis B vaccination among women of childbearing age: a cross-sectional study from a rural district of Punjab, Pakistan

“…Poverty is another major determinant in this regard. Low socioeconomic status jeopardizes other factors such as employment, lifestyle, nutrition, access to information and education and capacity to employ hygiene measures (16,17). In our study too, a higher level of education had a strong significant association with knowledge of hepatitis and its vaccine, and those who were employed in government service or private business tended to have better knowledge than housewives, the jobless and labourers.…”

Deficient Knowledge on Hepatitis B Infection in Pregnant Women and Prevalence of Hepatitis B Surface Antigen Carriage in an Endemic Area: A Review

“…In Hong Kong, vaccination programmes are provided to all nonimmune adults who requested vaccination by institutions such as universities, and nongovernment organizations such as the Family Planning Association, and by general practitioners [5, 56]. With increased public awareness of HBV infection over the past two decades, the rate of HBV vaccination uptake at their own expense amongst the pregnant women in Hong Kong increased from 13% in 1996 [5] to 33% in 2008 [56]. Nevertheless, there is much room for improvement and catch-up vaccination or booster doses should be offered to all individuals without confirmed immunity to HBV whenever such individuals are identified.…”

“…In Hong Kong, a high influx rate of immigrants and visitors from Mainland China in the past decade is thought to be an important contributing factor to the persistence of a high prevalence rate of chronic infection in pregnant women. We had demonstrated an association between status of residency and the HBV carriage rate (5.7% for locally born residents versus 14.2% for immigrants and nonresidents), with the uptake of hepatitis B vaccine (36.0% for local residents versus 22.3% for nonlocal residents), and poor knowledge on HBV transmission and prevention (aOR ranged 1.63–2.01 for new immigrants and 1.65–1.81 for nonresidents as compared with locally born residents) [12, 13, 56]. …”

Correlation between maternal hepatitis B surface antigen carrier status with social, medical and family factors in an endemic area: have we overlooked something?

“…While the figures for the women born outside Hong Kong were similar to the figure of 13.1% reported in 1997, the figure of 5.7% for the women born in Hong Kong was lower than the 8.4% rate reported earlier [14]. As a full course of three doses of the HBV vaccine would lead to the development of antibody response in approximately 90-95% of cases [1,10,[29][30][31], our finding suggested that the cumulative effects of the universal neonatal HBV immunisation programme [14] and the easily available HBV vaccine for the older non-immune adults from various health care sources with a self-uptake rate of up to 33% [24] have indeed led to a declining prevalence of HBV carriage among the women born in Hong Kong. On the other hand, the figure of 5.7% was still higher than expected, and among the 810 women who claimed to have received the HBV vaccine, which included 18 women who were born after 1988, the year of implementation of the universal vaccination programme, 39 (4.8%) were found to be HBV carriers.…”

“…The women who could not read or understand Chinese were not recruited. The details of the recruitment have been presented previously [24]. Ethical approval for this study was obtained from the Institutional Review Board.…”