Vaccination is a major medical advance, contributing to improved quality of life and life expectancy. This study aimed to spatially assess poliomyelitis vaccination coverage in the municipalities of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Ecological study using poliomyelitis vaccination coverage data from the 497 municipalities of Rio Grande do Sul between 2019 and 2024, available in DATASUS. Variables studied, in addition to vaccination coverage, were socioeconomic indices: per capita income and maternal education (completed primary and secondary school), based on live births. Thematic BOX maps were constructed to identify municipalities with mean vaccination coverage below 95%. Spatial analysis used TerraView 4.2.2 (INPE) to identify clusters, with Moran’s I (IM) estimated to assess spatial correlation between municipalities and BOX maps showing locations requiring intervention. Ethics committee review was waived (public data), with alpha=5%. Mean vaccination coverage in the municipalities was 94.47%, 100.95%, 90.17%, 92.47%, 107.84%, and 104.55% between 2019 and 2024, respectively. Mean coverage over the period was 98.41%. The thematic map identified 215 municipalities with mean vaccination coverage below 95%, located in the central, northwestern, and southwestern regions, with IM -0.016 (p=0.31), characterizing a mosaic. Thematic maps of socioeconomic variables showed similar municipalities (IM 0.221; p=0.01) with low per capita income overlapping with municipalities with low mean coverage, and clusters of municipalities (IM 0.241; p=0.01) with high maternal education rates also overlapping with low mean vaccination coverage. It was possible to identify municipalities with low mean vaccination coverage in this state that warrant attention from health managers.
Castro et al. (Sun,) studied this question.