Factors associated with full immunization of children 12–23 months of age in Ethiopia: A multilevel analysis using 2016 Ethiopia Demographic and Health Survey

Background: Only 40% of World Health Assembly member states achieved 90% national full vaccination coverage in 2015. In the African region, 79% of the countries had not achieved the target in 2015. In Ethiopia, only 39% of children 12–23 months of age were fully vaccinated. Though different studies were conducted in Ethiopia, they were limited in scope and used single level analysis. Therefore, this study aimed to assess individual and community level factors associated with full immunization among children 12–23 months of age in Ethiopia. Methods: The data was obtained from Ethiopia Demographic and Health Survey 2016, conducted from January 2016 to June 2016. The sample was taken using two stage stratified sampling. In stage one, 645 Enumeration Areas and in stage two 28 households per Enumeration Area were selected systematically. Weighted sample of 1929 children 12–23 months of age were included in the study. Data was extracted from http://www.DHSprogram.com. Multilevel logistic regression was employed. Akaike Information Criteria was used to select best fit model. Results: Mother’s education, husband employment, mother’s religion, mother’s antenatal care visit, presence of vaccination document, region and community antenatal care utilization were significantly associated with children full vaccination. The odds of full vaccination were 2.5 [AOR = 2.48 95% CI: 1.35, 4.56] and 1.6 [AOR = 1.58 95% CI: 1.1, 2.28] times higher in children of mothers with secondary or higher and primary education respectively than children of mothers with no education. Conclusion: This study showed that children full vaccination is affected both by the individual and community level factors. Therefore, efforts to increase children full vaccination status need to target both at individual and community level.