2 - Understanding Patient Preferences for Meningococcal Serogroup B Vaccines in the United States

Background: Among US adolescents, meningococcal disease serogroup B (MenB) causes more cases (62% in 2018) than other 4 serogroups (A, C, W, Y). ACIP’s recommendation for shared clinical decision-making calls for individuals to be given the choice of vaccination after consultation with their health care provider. No data are available to-date that formally quantify values and preferences for MenB vaccines. Our objective is to quantify such values.

Methods: Following best-practice standards for stated-preference research, a survey employed a discrete choice experiment (DCE) and contingent-valuation (CV) questions to quantify respondents’ trade-off preferences for vaccines that protect against diseases with various levels of severity and incidence, and to estimate the monetary value of receiving additional consultation regarding MenB vaccination with healthcare providers. A total of 2162 respondents (1203 young adults and 1185 parents) completed on-line surveys between August - October 2019.

Results: DCE analysis identified 3 classes of respondents for parents (table 1) and young adults, respectively. Overall, half of the respondents considered vaccines for low-incidence, high-severity diseases such as MenB to be at least as important as vaccines for high-incidence, low- severity diseases.
Respondents were asked to react to a hypothetical situation in which the health care provider did not discuss MenB vaccines with them and found out later. Approximately 70% of respondents expressed reactions ranging from ‘Concerned’ to ‘Angry or Disgusted’ (Figure 1). The majority of young adults and parents wanted physician-provided information about protection against low-incidence but serious diseases such as MenB. 
The CV analysis estimated that willingness to pay for the MenB vaccine was about US$300 for young adults and over US$400 for parents. However, they often felt entitled to the consultation with their health care provider about the MenB vaccines and were not willing to pay much for it (Figure 2).  Table 1. Parent Class Results (n=1185)
Figure 1. Respondents' Reactions to Health Care Provider Choosing Not to Discuss the MenB Vaccine with Them
Figure 2. Mean Willingness to Pay for Additional Time with Doctor for Discussing MenB Vaccine and Willingness to Pay for MenB Vaccine


Conclusion: The study found that parents of adolescents and young adults placed significant value on obtaining information about and protection against low-incidence diseases such as MenB that can result in severe long-term disabilities and death.