Estimation of the immunity coverage required to effectively control disease transmission is an important public health problem. We compare estimates based on the simplifying assumption that the community consists of uniformly mixing individuals with estimates obtained when the more complex community structure is acknowledged. The alternative community structures considered include households and localities that are quite separate. Several inequalities are established for estimates of the critical immunity coverage. For several settings it is found that the coverage estimated by assuming an oversimplified community structure is actually an underestimate. A serious consequence of this is that we may be misled into believing that we have estimated an immunity coverage that can prevent epidemics when it in fact cannot. The conclusion is that the heterogeneity in the community must be taken into account when estimating the critical immunity coverage.