Effect of Gender, Race, and Parental Education on Immunogenicity and Reported Reactogenicity of Acellular and Whole-Cell Pertussis Vaccines

Abstract

The consistently higher postimmunization GMTs among black infants seems to be a real finding for which we have no explanation; the infants did not significantly differ by race in vaccine assignment, preimmunization antibody levels, age at immunization, or interval from immunization to phlebotomy. These observations should be confirmed and further evaluated in future pertussis vaccine trials. Reported differences by race in pain and fussiness after receiving WCL might reflect chance, differences by race in the occurrence of reactions, or differences by race in the reporting of reactions.