Information systems for vaccine safety surveillance

Figures & data

Figure 1. Potential vaccine safety data sources by severity of presentation.

Table 1. Vaccine safety surveillance system types and attributes.

Surveillance System	Methods	Coverage	Reporters	Subjects	Reactogenicity	Signal detection	Signal investigation	Cost	Comments
Spontaneous	Paper, web-based	Broad, national	HCW, industry, public	All	++	+++	+	++	Under-report, global Vigibase dataset
Hospital based	Admissions screening	Sentinel hospitals	HCW, industry, public	Inpatients	+	++	+++	+++	Severe selected AESI
Solicited	Paper, SMS, e-mail, app	Limited, can be targeted	Community	Community	+++	+		+++	Rapid reactogenicity profile, response fatigue
Syndromic	Near-real time databases	Up to national
Syndromic ED	Triage/discharge dataset	Up to national	HCW	EDattendees	+	++	+	+	Coding or NLP reliant, no immunization status
Syndromic GP	Pooled de-identified records	Up to national	HCW	Patients	++	++	++	+	Milder AEFI, immunization status if given in clinic
Syndromic Health advice	Call/query record datasets	Up to national	HCW	Community seeking advice	+++	++		+	Nonspecific, high volume
Syndromic Social Media/News Media/internet searches	NLP including topic modeling	International	Community	Community	+++	?	?	+	Geomapping possible, also sentiment analysis
Datalinkage	Link immunization records with health outcome datasets/codes	Up to national	HCW	Community	+	++	+++	++	Source record validation sometimes possible, Rapid cycle analysis

Legend: ED – emergency department; GP – primary care physician/general practitioner; Health advice – Telephone or web-based consumer health advice services; SMS – short messaging service; app – dedicated web application; NLP – natural language processing; HCW – health care workers; AESI – adverse events of special interest; AEFI – adverse events following immunization; Rapid cycle analysis – repeated signal detection analyses for pre-specified AESI.