In 2018, the Sabin Vaccine Institute (Sabin) conducted a review of immunization legislation in the region. Sabin’s new report, Legislative Approaches to Immunization Across the European Region, examines how countries have approached immunization legislation, ranging from voluntary or recommended (the state asks that individuals seek out immunization) to mandatory (the state requires that individuals are immunized). Countries can now use this comprehensive review when evaluating legislative frameworks for immunization laws.
This study is the first and only systematic review of immunization legislation that includes all 53 countries in the WHO European Region. As approaches to immunization legislation across the European Region are diverse, a Matrix was developed to categorize country laws and policies and provide an overview of the degree of immunization oversight. A second tool, the Likert Scale: Assessing Levels of Immunization Legislation, was developed to further classify country immunization legislation with a scale from recommended to mandatory immunization with robust monitoring and follow-up, divided into five levels. Five national and regional case studies provide further comparison and analysis of legislative approaches to immunization. Russian and Romanian language versions of the study are also available.