Italian healthcare professionals' real-world experience with immunization in children of non-European origin: the Vax4globe survey

By
Viviana Moschese
Simona Graziani
Antonietta Spadea
Maurizia D’Amore
Raffaella Mosco
Sara Ciampini
Nicola Di Giorgio
Susanna Arcano
Simona Ceccarelli
Marco Chianca
Simona Piccinini
Antonella Polito
Marta Porcari
Pamela Puliafito
Romina Silenzi
Elisabetta Del Duca
Alfonso Piciocchi
Claudio Pignata
Michele Miraglia Del Giudice
Gian Luigi Marseglia
the Italian Society of Pediatric Research (SIRP) and the Italian Society of Pediatric Allergy and Immunology (SIAIP) Vaccine Committee
June 9, 2026
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To explore Italian healthcare professionals' experiences with immunization of non-European origin children.

101 healthcare professionals participated, caring for approximately 50,000–60,000 children, with about 15,000 being of non-EU origin.
88% of HCPs reported that ≤50% of non-EU origin parents could provide evidence of their children's immunizations.
80% of HCPs deemed the Italian National Vaccination Prevention Plan (PNPV) appropriate for ≤50% of children at first assessment.
Adherence to PNPV vaccines was higher than to Sars-CoV-2 vaccines in pediatric patients.
Main barriers to vaccine adherence identified were linguistic and socio-cultural (75%) for PNPV vaccines and safety concerns (52%) for the Sars-CoV-2 vaccine.

The study is limited to healthcare professionals in the Lazio Region and may not represent the entire Italian population.
Self-reported data may introduce bias in the assessment of vaccine adherence and barriers.