How routine vaccines will have prevented 1.1 million deaths, saved $2.7 trillion

A 30-year-old effort that mobilized families to get routine vaccines for children will have saved a million lives and trillions of dollars, a new analysis found.

The Vaccines for Children program, established in 1994 following a deadly measles outbreak, allowed millions of children across the U.S. to get routine shots regardless of their families’ income or health insurance status. Those immunizations will have prevented 1.13 million deaths, 32 million hospitalizations and 508 million illnesses, according to a study the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published Thursday.

The study looked at money saved by averting deaths and medical bills from preventable but debilitating illnesses that could have lifelong effects. This included days children did not miss school, and time parents did not miss work caring for them.

Researchers also accounted for money spent to immunize children. The program has cost $268 billion but the savings amount to $2.9 trillion, the study said. Put another way: For every dollar spent on vaccines, the country nets $11 in savings.

“Prevention is often a difficult sell,” Dr. Walter Orenstein, associate director at the Emory University Vaccine Center , who was unaffiliated with the study, told USA TODAY.

“When prevention is successful, you don’t realize you’re getting any benefits," said Orenstein, who led the U.S. Immunization Program at the time Vaccines for Children launched. "That’s the hard part, but it is important that we need to continue to vaccinate. These diseases are not gone.”

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, immunizations have declined as misinformation and disinformation increased. Recent outbreaks of measles , a highly infectious disease preventable with vaccines, show the importance of high vaccination coverage, CDC researchers said.

States and school districts require routine vaccinations for enrollment, but some students get religious or medical exemptions. The national vaccination rate among kindergartners was around 93% in the 2022-23 school year, a decline from the pre-pandemic rate of 95%, according to a CDC analysis .

The federal government launched the Vaccines for Children program following a resurgence of measles cases between 1989 and 1991 that left over 160 people dead, 11,000 hospitalized and more than 55,000 sick . Many of those children who fell ill couldn’t access a highly effective vaccine because of the cost to their families, Orenstein said.

The program has allowed millions of children to get routine shots for a variety of vaccine-preventable diseases such as polio and measles, and other illnesses such as hepatitis A and B and diphtheria. The CDC researchers’ analysis reviewed outcomes for 117 million children born between 1994 and 2023. The Vaccines for Children program covers families who are uninsured or underinsured or receive Medicaid coverage or tribal health care.

Routine shots will have prevented 100 million measles cases, 13.2 million measles hospitalizations and 752,800 deaths from diphtheria, a serious bacterial infection that can be prevented with vaccination, the study found.

The program will have saved $540 billion in direct costs, including medical bills and special education for children who develop disabilities from illnesses, researchers found. Total societal costs – or the measurable impact of premature deaths, permanent disabilities and lost work – came to $2.7 trillion.

The study did not look at the impact of vaccines recently added to the program: influenza, COVID-19 and RSV, which could mean the estimated benefits and savings are far greater, researchers said.

CDC researchers noted it may also be important to expand immunization programs to other providers, such as pharmacies, to increase access to vaccines.

Orenstein, of Emory, noted that federal public health responses have not offered a similar vaccine program for adults. The Bridge Access Program established less than a year ago allowed people without adequate insurance to get COVID-19 shots. That program runs out of funding in August. In its place, the Biden administration has proposed a Vaccines for Adults program to expand immunization coverage to a broader portion of the U.S. population.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How routine vaccines will have prevented 1.1 million deaths, saved $2.7 trillion