What makes refrigerators and motor vehicles important for vaccination?

Districts that have a higher proportion of households with more refrigerators are more vaccinated than districts that have a smaller number of refrigerators

In the socio-economic-caste-census conducted a decade ago, one of the criteria included in the deprivation list was the availability of refrigerators in the household; other criteria for asset holding were the presence of a motor vehicle and a mobile phone. Since the release of SECC data in 2015, the government has been dispensing benefits, like health insurance, to households without any of these assets.

Although the vaccination policy has been free for all from June 21, a Business Standard analysis shows a correlation between refrigerators, motor vehicles and vaccination.

On June 21, the government celebrated a new feat of vaccinating 8.7 million people in a single day. Until now, vaccinations have averaged 3-4 million daily. While vaccinating 9 million people would be nearly impossible, even if the government can achieve 5 million vaccinations daily, then the whole country can be vaccinated till the end of this year.

But as previous analyses show, there are inequities in the administration of vaccines. Data on vaccination for June 21, for instance, indicates that five states accounted for 55 per cent of vaccinations.

In its press conference on Tuesday, the government was quick to dispel the notion that only urban areas were getting the vaccines. An earlier analysis by BS has shown that SC districts, areas with minority populations, have a lower vaccination rate than the rest of the country.

Further analysis of district-wise data indicates that households falling in the deprivation list have a far lower vaccination rate than other households.

The reasons for this socio-economic distinction in the rate of vaccination are not clear—it can either be due to non-availability of vaccines or hesitancy—but district-wise analysis highlights a clear correlation between the presence of refrigerators, motor vehicles and vaccination.

On average, BS analysis finds that for select 626 districts, 13.5 per cent of households possessed a refrigerator. Further examination of data reveals that districts with more refrigerators (higher than the average) had administered 22.7 doses per 100 people. While the country’s average vaccination rate is 16.8 doses, households with fewer refrigerators have administered only 14.8 vaccine doses per 100 people.

A similar trend holds for the availability of a motor vehicle in a household. On an average, in 2011, just a fifth of all households across the country possessed a two-, three- or four-wheeler. Correlating this data with vaccination figures shows that districts with a higher proportion of households with a motor vehicle had a higher vaccination rate (18.3 doses per 100 people) than districts with fewer motor vehicles (15.7 doses per 100 people).