Social Economic and Administrative Hurdles to Health and Wellbeing: Evidence from Punjab, Pakistan’s growing immunization program

Abstract

United Nations Development Program Global Goal No. 3 is promoting health and well-being. In order to ensure that everyone has access to vaccines against certain diseases, the World Health Assembly asked the WHO to launch the Expanded Program on Immunisation (EPI). No matter how many different government departments and organisations work on this initiative, it is still not reaching its coverage goals. Finding the most significant administrative hurdles to launching this program in Pakistan's Punjab Province was the major motivation for this study. We employed a sequential exploratory design using quantitative and qualitative methods in our study. The most important administrative hurdles to the EPI program are identified through the use of qualitative analysis. Based on the findings from the qualitative research, a quantitative analysis was carried out. The health department experts were consulted to determine the rank orders of the barriers. To probe the conceptual and observational foundations, the case study approach was employed. There are twenty-eight potential obstacles that could hinder the program's implementation, according to the results. "Shortage of vaccinators, mismanagement of vaccines' cold chain, biometric android application, ice-lined refrigerators, communication gap, inadequate legislation of EPI program, capacity building issues with EPI staff, Misconceptions about EPI program, lack of awareness of the parents and community, refusal cases and inadequate cooperation of lady health workers" are among the most frequently cited administrative hurdles. Because of the interconnected nature of these obstacles, it is imperative that the public and the government work together to remove them.