Research Article Estimation and Comparison of Immunization Coverage under Different Sampling Methods for Health Surveys D. C. Nath and B. Patowari Department of Statistics, Gauhati University, Guwahati, Assam 781014, India Correspondence should be addressed to D. C. Nath; dilipc.nath@gmail.com Received 6 May 2014; Revised 19 July 2014; Accepted 21 July 2014; Published 7 August 2014 Academic Editor: Sandra D. Lane Copyright © 2014 D. C. Nath and B. Patowari. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Immunization currently averts an estimated 2-3 million deaths every year in all age groups. Hepatitis B is a major public health problem worldwide. In this study, the estimates of hepatitis B vaccine coverage are compared among three sampling plans namely, 30 × 30 sampling and 30 × 7 sampling method under cluster sampling and systematic random sampling schemes. Te data has been taken from the survey “Comparison of Two Survey Methodologies to Estimate Total Vaccination Coverage” sponsored by Indian Council of Medical Research, New Delhi. It is observed that the estimations of proportions of this vaccination coverage are signifcantly not diferent at 5% level of probability. Both 30 × 30 sampling and 30 × 7 sampling will be preferred to systematic sampling in estimation of hepatitis B vaccine coverage for this study population because of quick estimation and lesser cost. Te 30 × 7 cluster sampling is the most recommended method for such immunization coverage especially in a developing country. 1. Introduction World Health Organization states that trends related to global vaccination coverage (global estimates for 2008) continue to be positive [1]. Immunization has been one of the greatest public health successes. As many emerging and reemerging diseases are now the signifcant contributor to childhood morbidity and mortality, hepatitis B is one of them [2]. Hep- atitis B is a liver disease caused by the hepatitis B virus [3]. It is a disease with high prevalence, severe morbidity, and prema- ture mortality. It is highly infectious and can spread rapidly in the population through asymptomatic carriers [4]. About 78% of global pool of hepatitis B virus infection is from the Asian countries, particularly the developing countries of Asia-Pacifc region [5]. Medical and public health experts strongly support universal vaccination against the hepatitis B virus, but many parents still do not think that their children need to be vaccinated. Te hepatitis B virus is 100 times more infectious than the HIV virus [6]. Te carrier rate of hepatitis B in India is diferent in the diferent regions of the country. Te overall carrier rate is ofen quoted as being 4.7% [7]. Tus, India is an intermediate to high endemicity country [4]. Since 1982, hepatitis B vaccine has been available to pre- vent hepatitis B virus infection [8]. Hepatitis B vaccine was given within 12 hours of birth, then at 6 weeks and at 14 weeks [9]. Tis is to be noted that the children of Assam in the North-East Region of India have consistently evidenced low rates for routine childhood immunizations. Lack of infor- mation among the parents was one of the major causes of dropout of vaccinations [10]. In the late 1980s, the World Health Organization (WHO) developed the Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) survey methodology also known as a two-stage (30 × 30) clus- ter sampling (recommended by WHO), which has been widely used ever since to assess vaccination coverage. Immu- nization status of children was evaluated using WHO-30 cluster methodology [11–14]. In this study, the estimates of hepatitis B (at birth) vaccine coverage are compared by using two-stage cluster and systematic random sampling method. Te main objective of the study is to make a comparative study of hepatitis B (at birth) vaccine coverage between (i) two-stage cluster (30 × 30) and systematic random sampling and (ii) two-stage cluster (30 × 7) and systematic random Hindawi Publishing Corporation International Journal of Population Research Volume 2014, Article ID 850479, 14 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/850479