Closing the vaccination coverage gap in New South Wales: the Aboriginal Immunisation Healthcare Worker Program

Improving the accuracy of ACIR data and increasing vaccination rates

“…Immunisation Healthcare Worker Program in New South Wales. 13 The gap reduced more in NSW when compared with Australia.…”

“…Successful interventions in Aboriginal populations include personalised calendars, 11 telephoning families before the due date for immunisa-tion 12 and the introduction of the Aboriginal Immunisation Healthcare Worker Program in New South Wales. 13 In a before-after study, Western Sydney Aboriginal children who received a personalised calendar showed improved timeliness of vaccination. 11 The Hunter New England (HNE) pre-call strategy was introduced around the time when Aboriginal immunisation workers were being introduced in all jurisdictions in NSW.…”

High rates of vaccination of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians: an underappreciated success?

“…5 Substantial improvements in timely vaccination of young Indigenous chil dren in New South Wales were recently documented in the Journal, and were ascribed to a program for optimising uptake in a culturally appropriate manner. 7 Higher rates of zoster vaccine uptake by older Indigenous adults have also been achieved by the national program, with coverage (possibly underreported) of 43.3% (33.8% in older non Indigenous Australians). 8 Editorials Improved Indigenous vaccination rates are therefore consider able, albeit possibly underappreciated, successes that reflect the intensive efforts of dedicated vaccination providers, program staff, and policymakers (including many Indigenous people) to engage with Indigenous Australians and their communities, as well as the support of Indigenous people for these efforts.…”

Indigenous health: one gap is closed

“…In this year's Indigenous health issue, four research papers and the accompanying editorials underline the progress we are making as a journal and as a medical community in bringing about meaningful change. In this respect, the report by Hendry and colleagues, 3 documenting the effective closure of the gap in vaccination rates, is particularly heartening. Vaccination is recognised by the World Health Organization as one of the most cost‐effective interventions in public health 4 .…”

“…The accompanying editorial 7 summarises a suite of targeted interventions that build on these and other findings published in the Journal 8 . While these approaches are no doubt important, adapting the successful approach of Hendry and colleagues' to vaccination, 3 to provide a similarly structured intervention for lipid‐lowering therapy, could be a game‐changing strategy for closing the gap in cardiovascular disease.…”