Improving access to immunisation for migrants and refugees: recommendations from a stakeholder workshop

Understanding the barriers to uptake of antenatal vaccination by women from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds: A cross-sectional study

“…Uptake of maternal vaccination amongst CALD women may be hampered by lack of familiarity with health services, language barriers and lack of interpreters, and competing priorities particularly for those who have only recently arrived. 22 Standing orders for vaccination within pregnancy care settings have been demonstrated to increase uptake [23][24][25] and may be particularly useful for CALD women. By enabling vaccination during routine pregnancy care, standing orders would negate women having to navigate multiple healthcare services.…”

Immunisation for refugees in Australia: a policy review and analysis across all States and Territories

“…42 The national immunisation register therefore has the unique potential to not only identify refugees who are under-immunised, but also improve coverage rates for this group by reducing missed opportunities for immunisation. 43 Although the inclusion of identifiers for refugees and other migrants on the AIR is highly recommended, technical issues that hampered data entry into the ACIR may inhibit efficient data extraction for refugees from the AIR if they are not addressed accordingly. Some of the challenges indicated to affect the quality of data entered into the ACIR include: the amount of time required to enter all data fields correctly; incorporating routine and overseas vaccine histories; differences in notification payments; inadequate capacity to manually enter vaccine records; and specialists -including paediatricians -lacking automatic access to the register.…”

“…41,44 Policy analyses of migrant health policies in England, Italy and the Netherlands have similarly highlighted challenges with data collection for migrants leading to difficulties in evaluation of healthcare utilisation among this group. 25 This therefore calls for more standardised measures in primary care, such as increased funding support and targeted training for primary care providers to ensure refugees are flagged and systematically captured in the register 26,43 and a routine data field on the register for country of birth and refugee status. 7 Under-resourcing of immunisation programs for refugees particularly referring to the complexities around funding for catchup vaccines remains a major obstacle in immunisation policy implementation.…”

“…41 National funding for catch-up vaccines for refugees of any age would ensure equitable access and effective delivery of vaccines for this vulnerable group. 43 While this review focused on high-level immunisation policy documents, the need for lower-level implementation policy that includes clear guidelines for development of catch-up schedules for refugees cannot be over-emphasised. Routine immunisation programs in refugee source countries are not optimal when compared to those available in Australia, which has one of the most comprehensive national immunisation programs in the world.…”

Vaccine myopia: adult vaccination also needs attention

“…These groups are generally less actively monitored or promoted than those covered under the National Immunisation Program Schedule, with the possible exception of health care workers in some areas or jurisdictions. This situation further underlines the case for immunisation to be regarded as a whole‐of‐life endeavour, and to ensure that relevant data are captured by the new Australian Immunisation Register (eg, on travel, migrant and refugee status) and is accessible to primary care providers to check the immunisation status 3 . A useful summary of adult immunisation recommendations is provided in the adult immunisation fact sheet produced by the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance 4…”