Correlating Measles Cases and Vaccination Rates in the United States and Abroad

Introduction: Measles is a highly contagious and vaccine-preventable viral respiratory infection that continues to affect children and adults in the United States (U.S.) and abroad. Objective: This study aims to correlate vaccination rates and measles cases in the U.S. to countries worldwide during 1995 to 2000 and 2013 to 2018. Methods: Two datasets, measles reported cases and percent single dose measles-containing-vaccine coverage in 1-year old infants, were obtained from World Health Observatory Data portal for 165 countries. Third dataset, population dynamics, was utilized from World Bank portal to convert reported measles cases to measles case rates for selected 165 countries. A Spearman Rank analysis and paired t-test was performed to determine if rates of vaccination and measles cases differ between the two outlined time periods. Results: N=165, a Spearman Rank analysis showed a negative correlation (r = -0.270, pConclusion: There was a statistically significant negative correlation between the rate of MCV-1 vaccination and rate of measles cases from 1995 to 2000 and 2013 to 2018. There was a statistically significant decrease rate of measles cases and increase in vaccination from 1995-2000 to 2015-2018. Overall, our study reiterates the relationship between vaccination and measles cases and how robust vaccination programs protect communities worldwide from deadly outbreaks