International Journal of Vaccines Review Article

ML Analysis of Factors Affecting Vaccination in Rural Children: A Machine Learning Approach

  1. Shrutika Bhasme MCA Thakur Institute of Management Studies, Career Development & Research
  2. Ramsa Ansari MCA Thakur Institute of Management Studies, Career Development & Research
  3. Anamika Dhawan MCA Thakur Institute of Management Studies, Career Development & Research

Abstract

Vaccination remains one of the most effective public health interventions for preventing childhood diseases, yet rural regions in India continue to experience uneven immunization coverage due to multiple socioeconomic and geographic barriers. This research applies machine learning techniques to identify and analyze the major determinants influencing childhood vaccination uptake in rural communities. The study utilizes survey-based demographic, socioeconomic, and healthcare-related parameters to build predictive models that classify children as vaccinated or unvaccinated. Among various algorithms tested—including Logistic Regression, Decision Trees, Support Vector Machines, and Random Forest—the Random Forest classifier demonstrated superior performance with 89.6% accuracy, 0.88 precision, 0.90 recall, and 0.89 F1-score. Feature importance analysis revealed that parental awareness, family income, maternal education level, distance to healthcare centers, and availability of immunization facilities were the most significant predictors. These findings provide actionable, data-driven insights for healthcare policymakers to design targeted interventions aimed at improving immunization rates in underserved rural areas, highlighting the potential of machine learning in strengthening public health strategies through early identification of at-risk children and optimized resource allocation.

Keywords

References (30)

  1. Z.-X. Dai, H.-J. Lan, N. Hai, J.-Y. Wang, and H.-H. Wang, “Balancing fairness and efficiency in dynamic vaccine allocation during major infectious disease outbreaks,” Scientific Reports, vol. 15, art. 1371, 2025.
  2. I. Akuma, “Ethical implications of artificial intelligence in vaccine distribution planning and scheduling in low- and middle-income countries,” JMIR Research Protocols, 2025.
  3. K. Abedrabboh, et al., “Mechanism design for a fair and equitable approach to global vaccine distribution,” BMC Public Health, 2023.
  4. A. Ifeanyichukwu, V. Vaswani, and P. E. Ekmekci, “Exploring AI-based distribution planning and scheduling systems’ effectiveness in ensuring equitable vaccine
  5. distribution,” AI and Ethics, 2025.
  6. E. Rumpler, J. M. Feldman, M. T. Bassett, and M. Lipsitch, “Fairness and efficiency considerations in COVID-19 vaccine allocation strategies: A case study
  7. comparing front-line workers and 65–74 year olds,” PLOS Global Public Health, 2023.
  8. M. Bayati, R. Noroozi, M. Ghanbari-Jahromi, F. S. Jalali, et al., “Inequality in the distribution of COVID-19 vaccine: A systematic review,” International Journal for Equity in Health, vol. 21, no. 152, 2022.
  9. R. Awasthi, K. K. Guliani, S. A. Khan, A. Vashishtha, et al., “VacSIM: Learning effective strategies for COVID-19 vaccine distribution using reinforcement learning,” arXiv preprint, arXiv:2009.06602, 2020.
  10. N. Neophytou, A. Taïk, and G. Farnadi, “Promoting fair vaccination strategies through influence maximization: A case study on COVID-19 spread,” arXiv preprint,
  11. arXiv:2403.05564, 2024.
  12. B. Yin, J. Yuan, W. Lv, J. Huang, and G. Fang, “Wise in vaccine allocation,” arXiv preprint, arXiv:2306.07223, 2023.
  13. L. Ling, W. U. Mondal, V. Satish, and S. Ukkusuri, “Cooperating graph neural networks with deep reinforcement learning for vaccine prioritization,” arXiv
  14. preprint, arXiv:2305.05163, 2023.
  15. J. Zhou, et al., “A decision-making framework for supporting an equitable vaccine distribution,” European Journal of Operational Research, vol. 321, 2025.
  16. M. Arman, A. S. M. Fahim, and N. N. H. Razib, “Optimizing vaccine distribution with machine learning,” International Journal of Innovative Research and Scientific
  17. Studies, vol. 7, no. 4, 2024.
  18. D. B. Olawade, et al., “Leveraging artificial intelligence in vaccine development,” Vaccine, vol. 42, no. 3, 2024.
  19. R. A. El Arab, “Artificial intelligence in vaccine research and development,” Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence, vol. 8, 2025.
  20. M. Xiao, et al., “A machine learning method for allocating scarce COVID-19 vaccines,” JAMA Health Forum, vol. 5, no. 4, 2024.
  21. P. Joshi, et al., “Evaluating accuracy and equity in vaccination information from ChatGPT vs. CDC,” JMIR Formative Research, vol. 8, e60939, 2024.
  22. S. K. Malik and N. Chatterjee, “Artificial intelligence for vaccine design and distribution: Challenges and opportunities,” IEEE Access, vol. 12, pp. 23251–23263, 2024.
  23. Z. Kang, et al., “New vaccine allocation model focuses on fairness and diversity,” AI in Public Health, vol. 3, no. 1, 2025.
  24. A. Rahman, L. Santos, and P. Kaur, “AI-driven optimization of cold-chain logistics for equitable vaccine delivery,” Computers & Industrial Engineering, vol. 185, 109931, 2024.
  25. G. Wang, et al., “Reinforcement learning-based adaptive vaccine distribution strategy under supply uncertainty,” IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 845–857, 2025.
  26. C. Liang, et al., “AI-enabled prediction of vaccine hesitancy patterns from social media data,” Pattern Recognition Letters, vol. 165, pp. 72–81, 2024.
  27. A. Fernandez-Mendoza, et al., “Data-driven prioritization of vaccination in resource-limited regions,” Health Informatics Journal, vol. 30, no. 1, 2024.
  28. H. Xu, J. Qian, and P. Zhao, “Fair allocation of limited vaccines with deep learning-assisted epidemiological models,” IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems, vol. 10, no. 5, pp. 921–932, 2023.
  29. Y. Liu, S. Zhang, and R. Chen, “Ethical frameworks for AI-driven vaccination policy design,” AI & Society, vol. 40, pp. 317–329, 2024.
  30. R. Mishra, L. Bose, and A. Patel, “Societal implications of algorithmic fairness in vaccination distribution,” Communications of the ACM, vol. 68, no. 7, pp. 71–83, 2025.