Top 20 vaccines administered by physicians in 2021

The WHO defines vaccines as “simple, safe, and effective ways of protecting you against harmful diseases, before you come into contact with them.” By introducing small amounts of killed, weakened, or modified forms of pathogens (e.g., viruses and bacteria) the vaccine triggers your immune response and strengthens your body’s natural defenses.

Of course, when thinking about the most administered vaccines in 2021, the new class of mRNA vaccines to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic are at the top the list. In fact, according to Our World in Data, more than 609 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine were administered just in the United States. However, the COVID-19 vaccines show up at the very bottom of the Top 20 physician-administered vaccines because the vast majority of COVID vaccines were delivered not by physicians, but rather by retail pharmacies, urgent care clinics, school-based vaccine programs, or hospital-administered programs.

Since August was National Immunization Awareness month, we wanted to highlight the top 20 vaccines administered by physicians in 2021, calculated using data from the Definitive Healthcare platform. We used de-identified, all-payor prescription claims data from the Definitive Healthcare ClaimsMx product to highlight the 20 most administered vaccines by physicians for calendar year 2021.