Role of non-traditional locations for seasonal flu vaccination: Empirical evidence and evaluation

This study investigated the role of non-traditional locations in the decision to vaccinate for seasonal flu. We measured individuals' preferred location for seasonal flu vaccination by examining the National H1N1 Flu Survey (NHFS) conducted from late 2009 to early 2010. Our econometric model estimated the probabilities of possible choices by varying individual characteristics, and predicted the way in which the probabilities are expected to change given the specific covariates of interest. From this estimation, we observed that non-traditional locations significantly influenced the vaccination of certain individuals, such as those who are high-income, educated, White, employed, and living in a metropolitan statistical area (MSA), by increasing the coverage. Thus, based on the empirical evidence, our study suggested that supporting non-traditional locations for vaccination could be effective in increasing vaccination coverage.