Impact of Reports of Hepatitis B Vaccination on Hepatitis A Vaccination Reports

Hepatitis A and hepatitis B are both viral diseases affecting the liver; however they are generally transmitted via different means and often result in different spectra of health effects once infected. Vaccinations are available for each of these diseases. It is hypothesized that many lay people are not familiar with differences between hepatitis A and hepatitis B and may confuse them owing to the similarity of their names. For this paper, we report the results of a randomized experiment that was conducted in the fall of 2004, embedded within a retrospective survey of parents concerning childhood vaccination followed by a record check from the children’s health care providers. The objective of the embedded randomized experiment was to determine whether reports of hepatitis A vaccination were influenced by the inclusion of questions about hepatitis B vaccination. We further investigated whether these vaccination reports differ by demographic characteristics, the number and age of children, presence of shot records, and the number of vaccination providers. Finally, we investigated the accuracy of the reports of hepatitis A vaccinations from parents who were also asked the hepatitis B questions by comparing parent and provider reports of hepatitis A vaccinations.