OBJECTIVES: An overwhelming body of evidence demonstrates vaccination as a highly clinical- and cost-effective health intervention. Vaccine uptake in Latin America (LatAm) has advanced considerably over recent years; however, despite the wealth of evidence for cost-effectiveness of immunisation, vaccine-access is often incomplete, thus considerable resources are expended treating preventable diseases. Here we investigate factors limiting vaccine uptake with the aim of improving vaccine coverage. METHODS: Percentage population coverage for 8 commonly used vaccines (BCG, DTP1, DTP3, HepB3, Hib3, MCV, Pol3, Rubella1; data source: WHO) in each LatAm country were compared to the average coverage, and the mean variation-from-average calculated to produce a summary statistic for the variable of vaccine coverage per country. Correlations between this variable and potential contributory factors were analysed (data sources: World Bank/Transparency International) using Pearson’s r coefficient. Factors investigated were indicative of a country’s wealth (GDP/capita), development (access to electricity), population size, urbanisation (% rural population) and corruption (corruption perception index). RESULTS: Initial analyses identified countries with consistently poor vaccine coverage. The 5 countries with lowest coverage were Paraguay, Bolivia, Haiti, Dominican Republic and Venezuela. Central American countries such as Saint Lucia, Nicaragua and Grenada, and South American countries including Guyana, Brazil and Uruguay, had good coverage levels. Investigations into factors contributory to poor vaccine uptake demonstrated moderate correlations between vaccine coverage and increased corruption (r=0.47), low urbanisation (r=0.31) and low GDP/capita (r=0.32). Correlations were poor between vaccine uptake and development (r=0.00) and population size (r=-0.04). CONCLUSIONS: Based on these initial investigations, methods to increase vaccine uptake, reduce disease burden and increase healthcare cost-effectiveness in LatAm may include better access to vaccines through charitable/WHO initiatives to reduce disparities between rich/poor countries, and improved vaccine access in rural areas. However, additional analyses are required to further investigate each of these factors, and to consider additional contributory factors.