Immunisation
Our Childhood Immunisation Coverage project continues to see positive results across the three standard milestones.
Over the past 3 years since Australia reached the 95% target for the first time, followed by the pandemic, childhood immunisation rates have shown a slow decline Nation-wide. This trend has continued in the last 12 months, however rates in the CESPHN region have remained consistent with only slight movement experienced.
In late 2020 we commenced a targeted project assisting general practices to identify and follow up children overdue for vaccination in areas with low or declining coverage rates. Positive feedback from practices and project success led to the project being expanded across the entire CESPHN region with more than 300 general practices now receiving a monthly immunisation overdue report, extracted from AIR by the CESPHN immunisation team.
This year the immunisation team has held six online CPD webinars on various topics relating to immunisation from Vaccination Catchup Schedules to Monkeypox. All sessions are recorded and available on CESPHN YouTube for further learning opportunities for our stakeholders at a time that suits them.
As of June 2023
94.2%
of children were considered fully vaccinated at 12 months - down slightly from 94.9% in June 2022.
91.6%
of children were considered fully vaccinated at 2 years - down from 92.5% in June 2022
92.5%
of children were considered fully vaccinated at 5 years - up slightly from 92.3% in June 2022
Nurse Winter Vaccination Program
The Nurse Winter Vaccination Program supported 110 general practices who employ a practice nurse with $2000 grants to engage in conversations about vaccination with their patients in vulnerable groups and increase uptake of COVID-19 vaccination and other recommended vaccines.
Multilingual COVID-19 Vaccination Program
The Multilingual COVID-19 Vaccination Program aims to enhance COVID-19 vaccination health literacy among priority Multicultural communities in the CESPHN region with low COVID-19 vaccine booster uptake, as well as improve the understanding of COVID-19 and its impact on health and wellbeing among Multicultural communities in the region.
Winter Wellness community awareness in-language sessions have been delivered across 11 language groups to date.
Building Community Vaccination Awareness
The Building Community Vaccination Awareness project aims to empower community by increasing awareness and uptake of recommended COVID-19 vaccination in vulnerable communities, and to build partnerships with local agencies and community groups to optimize individual and community uptake of vaccination. We are working with five providers to bring these initiatives to the multicultural communities across the CESPHN region.
PHN-Immunisation Support Program annual conference presentation.
CESPHN’s Immunisation Support Team.