The most complete record of national and states rates of immunization coverage for each vaccine are in the National Immunization Surveys. Anyone can download the data sets in various forms for each of the most recent five years for which data is available. Adverse events occurring after vaccination are reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), a passive surveillance system available for anyone (doctors, patients, parents, other health care providers, etc.) to report any adverse event that occurred after receiving a vaccine. However, because VAERS is a passive system – it only collects information, which anyone can submit as many times as they like – it does not accurately represent “side effects” that are linked to vaccines. (It is similar to MAUDE at the FDA.) Reports may be duplicates and may be coincidental or actual side effects from vaccines. (Some reports include car accidents, for example.) A YouTube training video explains how to search the VAERS database. Reports are available as CSV or ZIP files by year dating to 1990. An active surveillance system for vaccines is the Vaccine Safety Datalink. Research findings from the VSD are frequently published in medical studies (complete list here), and two datasets are available by public request.
Adult vaccinations
If you are reporting on adult vaccination rates in your region, the CDC has a good breakdown in trends in vaccination rates for people 18 and older, here. Data comes from the National Health Information Survey, the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System, the Minimum Data Set (MDS), and Internet panel surveys. A set of data in a Excel sheet format on those adults vaccinated for the flu can be found here: TABLE 1. Estimated proportion of adults ≥19 years who received influenza vaccination, by age group, increased-risk status, and race/ethnicity*, National Health Interview Survey, United States, 2015-16 season
WHO/UNICEF 2025 National Immunization Coverage
The annual WHO/UNICEF national immunization coverage report provides estimates of coverage of immunization for all of the WHO-recommended childhood vaccines, many of which Gavi provides for low- and middle-income countries. The Immunization Data Portal/Immunization Dashboard can be accessed here, which shows cases and trends of vaccine-preventable diseases and of global vaccination.
The page also includes links to other helpful resources, including:
- Instructions on using the portal.
- Polio case count data.
- An international HPV vaccination dashboard.
- An international malaria vaccination dashboard.
- Resources for Surveillance for Vaccine Preventable Diseases.
- Recommended vaccination schedules (WHO).
- Data on introduction of individual vaccines across the globe.
Other helpful data related to global immunization trends include:
- Gavi factsheet.
- Global dashboard of vaccine-preventable disease cases and individual vaccines’ coverage.
- Individual country profiles for vaccination coverage.
- UNICEF immunization regional snapshots for 2024.
- UNICEF’s complete data sets for different vaccines.
- UNICEF data visualizations for global immunization trends.
- UNICEF regional data visualizations.
- UNICEF immunization country profiles.