Introduction: Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines protect against cervical and other HPV-related cancers and have been offered in Australia’s school-based program since 2007. However, by age 25, only 75% of women and 57% of men are vaccinated. When the schedule moved to a single dose in 2023, funded HPV vaccine eligibility was extended from 18 up to 25 years, potentially increasing reach and newly overlapping with the start age of cervical screening (25).

Aim: To understand young people’s awareness, attitudes and information needs relating to HPV vaccine and cervical screening

Methods: Semi-structured online focus group discussions were conducted with young people aged 20- 25 years in Victoria recruited to discuss ‘cancer prevention’ in 2024/2025. Topics included HPV, cervical cancer and its prevention including vaccine and screening. Participants were shown existing print and video resources to elicit feedback and generate ideas regarding effective communication materials for young people. We used thematic/framework analysis.

Results: There was a marked lack of awareness about HPV vaccination and screening across the gender spectrum. Almost all were unaware of the free HPV vaccine for their age group. Participants emphasised the need for clear, accessible information, particularly for people from diverse backgrounds. Young people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, including international students, faced additional challenges in navigating the healthcare system. Some had received different messaging from varied cultural contexts which increased stigma about the vaccine. Future resources should incorporate personal voices and perspectives in short informational videos with diverse representation.

Conclusions: Participants underscored the need for relatable, engaging, and accessible health education materials developed by/with young people. Wider system issues, such as the cost of GP visits, are likely to adversely impact the uptake of HPV vaccine and cervical screening among young people. Promotion of HPV vaccination and screening at university/workplace clinics and pharmacies may increase uptake.

With the support of Gavi, the Burnet Institute and World Vision implemented a program to reestablish Village Health Committees (VHCs) across three provinces in the Solomon Islands. This initiative was designed to enhance immunisation awareness among rural communities that encounter barriers to accessing vaccines and to address the lack of awareness about the importance of immunisation.

Communities were selected based on their low immunisation coverage and limited access to healthcare services. Recruitment of local leaders and community members ensured that newly formed committees included respected and valued members of the community. The composition of the committees included a balanced representation of men and women aged 21 to 66.

A three-day training program was collaboratively developed with committee members, focusing on community leadership, immunisation awareness, and the planning of immunisation campaigns. Each committee was provided with a flipchart containing images and descriptions in both Pijin and English to serve as a resource during their campaigns.

Twelve months after training, each VHC was visited to discuss their experiences, including what strategies were effective and what challenges they encountered. Feedback from committee members was positive, particularly among women, who reported increased confidence in their roles as community leaders. They felt better equipped to discuss immunisation with family and friends and felt more confident in prioritising immunisation as a critical topic in community meetings.

All VHCs emphasised the importance of disseminating this information beyond their immediate villages and throughout the Solomon Islands. They also recommended the inclusion of a health facility nurse in their training sessions to address any additional questions related to local health services and to explore the potential for outreach vaccination programs.

In 2025, this project will be expanded to reach an additional ten villages across five provinces to further enhance vaccination coverage and awareness.

Background
Social media is a powerful health education tool but poses challenges in combating healthcare misinformation. This is particularly concerning in paediatric health, where myths around immunisations and vaccine preventable diseases fuel vaccine hesitancy and unproven practices. In today’s digital age, differentiating credible health information from misleading content is crucial – as misconceptions can lead to serious health risks

Embracing a holistic approach to health promotion and education, The Well Nest (thewellnest.space) is a digital platform focused on enhancing health literacy and addressing misinformation in paediatric and adolescent health. With content curated by health professional, The Well Nest adopts a two-pronged approach targeted at parents of young children and adolescents via digital platforms TikTok and Instagram (@thewellnest_space). The platform leverages popular social media channels to promote informed health behaviours in a direct-to-consumer methodology emphasising two-way engagement.

Methods
The Well Nest addresses health issues from multiple perspectives – with all content selected and validated by clinicians. The multi-prong approach recognises that comprehensive health understanding is key to empowering individuals and communities.

The digital platform dissects complex health topics into accessible, digestible content forms and facilitates deeper engagement. The platform features short form video content and is delivered in three main styles – science explainer videos, common disease descriptions and current or topical health issue features addressing common questions.

Results
Since its launch in August 2024, The Well Nest has established a robust online presence for health literacy in the target demographic seeking information around common paediatric illnesses and drivers of health to promote positive behaviour change.

It has reached over 16k accounts on Instagram and 45k accounts on Tiktok, with over 1.5k unique engagements with our content. Since its inception, the audience has been predominately female, with 47% in the age range of 18-24yo, and 41.1% in the 25-34 yo age range.

Conclusion
Through fostered engagement and knowledge sharing, The Well Nest has adopted a new approach to information sharing – combating misinformation and creating a relevant and lasting impact in paediatric health education.

Background:

Childhood vaccination rates in Australia have declined since 2020. National survey data on barriers to vaccination in children aged <5 years, collected in the first year of the National Vaccination Insights Project (2024), suggests parents face access (practical) and acceptance barriers (e.g. beliefs about safety and effectiveness of vaccines) to vaccination. This study aimed to use these data to inform evidence-based, feasible strategies that can be further tailored to context to improve vaccination rates in Australia.

Methods:

In July 2024 we held an online interactive workshop with 12 immunisation stakeholders representing community members (n=5; Group 1); healthcare professionals (n=3; Group 2) and immunisation policymakers (n= 4; Group 3). Based on the literature, we mapped evidence-based strategies to the survey-identified barriers. From the resulting list, stakeholders selected strategies they deemed most appropriate and feasible and discussed how to implement them. We synthesised workshop outputs along with expert input informed by relevant literature to propose policy and practice-related actions.

Results:

Group 1 selected and discussed on-site vaccinations in community settings and tailored campaigns sharing positive social norm messages about vaccination. Groups 2 and 3 focused on reminders for upcoming vaccination and default appointments; provider performance assessment and feedback; dialogue-based interventions and accessible information for parents. Stakeholders noted that implementation of these strategies will require policy and funding changes for primary care and streamlining use of Australian Immunisation Register data.

Conclusions:

Addressing barriers to childhood vaccination requires a multi-sectoral, multi-strategy approach. We propose four inter-related themes of action: increase access; increase acceptance (through increasing providers' communication skills and community engagement with vaccination); and facilitate use of data. Serial collection of vaccination insights data across populations and vaccines is needed to build a more robust dataset that will facilitate comparison of trends over time, development of relevant strategies and evaluation of their effectiveness.

This project used social and behavioural insights to explore community and health provider information needs, behaviours and beliefs around routine childhood, adolescent and adult vaccination to inform education materials in Fiji and Kiribati.

We conducted 12 focus groups in Fiji (113 participants) with community members and health providers in October 2022. Fiji had achieved strong uptake of the primary COVID-19 vaccine course due to mandates and financial incentives, but booster uptake was suboptimal. While routine childhood vaccines were generally accepted and acknowledged as important, there were indications that misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 vaccines was affecting childhood vaccine uptake. A flip chart was requested by health providers to help them address these issues with their communities. We developed, piloted and evaluated a culturally applicable flip chart with communities and health providers in 2023.

In Kiribati, a total of 30 participants took part in three different focus group discussions, two with community members and one with nurses, in 2024. The aim was to understand community attitudes and behaviours and tailor the flip chart for Kiribati. We found high acceptance for vaccines; however, there was little information available on the importance of vaccination. Childhood vaccine uptake was affected by practical issues, but frequently parents reported that they prioritised other needs. We tailored and evaluated the Fiji flipchart for Kiribati healthcare workers and their communities.

The process of developing, tailoring and evaluating vaccine information aids has highlighted important considerations including the importance of local languages, benefits and challenges of co-design, familiarity and power of story, and the ongoing need for culturally tailored, plain language information resources. This talk will focus on these factors and the importance of community inclusion and culture when designing and implementing information resources in the Pacific.

Background: Papua New Guinea has some of the lowest immunisation coverage rates globally. In East New Britain (ENB) province in 2023, 41% of children were estimated to be ‘zero-dose’ (not receiving the first dose of Diphtheria-Tetanus-Pertussis (DTP) vaccine) and 55% were ‘under-immunised’ (not receiving the third dose of DTP). This project was designed to identify barriers to vaccine coverage and develop tailored behaviour change and communications tools to increase immunisation awareness, demand, and ultimately coverage.

Methods: Together with ENB Provincial Health Authority (ENBPHA), five local-level government areas with high numbers of under-immunised children were identified. Quantitative and qualitative information was gathered from caregivers, healthcare workers and community and religious leaders to understand barriers contributing to low immunisation coverage.

A co-design process with community members, community and religious leaders, healthcare workers and ENBPHA incorporating a novel ‘vision fish’ methodology was used to develop culturally appropriate solutions to identified immunisation barriers. Innovative behaviour change communications tools were also co-designed to ensure that immunisation messages were delivered in a manner that would resonate best with communities.

Results/discussion: Three specific communications tools were developed: 1) A community flipchart which provides key messages around immunisation and accompanying images, together with facilitators’ notes; 2) a ‘cube’ which depicts the science behind vaccines using simple imagery to allay concerns about vaccination and legitimise vaccine safety; and 3) a swaddle blanket with the image of a frangipani flower, with each petal displaying an image of the number of vaccines to be received in each month of an infant’s life, to serve as a simple visual prompt and incentive for the caregiver.

Conclusion: Health information must be delivered in a manner that is culturally sensitive and easily understood. Co-designing materials with end-users offers a viable approach to ensure information is tailored to the local context.

Background: Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccination coverage for 12-month-old children has declined in the Cumberland Local Government Area (LGA) of Western Sydney. Insights from the WSLHD Public Health Unit (PHU) Immunisation Team over the past two years indicate that a range of factors, including fear and mistrust linked to the pandemic, may be contributing to this decline. This study aims to investigate the underlying reasons for low childhood vaccine uptake in the region.

Methods: In this ongoing qualitative study, focus groups have been conducted with parents and caregivers from Arabic and Nepali-speaking communities in Western Sydney’s Cumberland LGA, with plans to conduct additional focus groups in both Arabic and Nepali, as well as English. Participants were recruited through Multicultural Health and their community contacts. The focus group discussion guide was developed using the Behavioural and Social Drivers of Vaccination (BeSD) framework. These discussions were transcribed and translated, and qualitative data were analysed thematically using an inductive approach.

Results: Preliminary findings with Arabic and Nepali-speaking communities indicate that trust in healthcare providers particularly Arabic-speaking doctors, and strong family and social network support are key drivers of vaccination. Both groups emphasised the importance of community institutions, such as schools and mosques, for providing trusted information. While some barriers were identified, including concerns about side effects, long waiting times, and access issues, our participants did not find them to be significant enough to prevent vaccination. Motivations for vaccination included a strong desire to protect children and meet childcare requirements.

Conclusion: Early insights highlight the importance of trust, family support, and accessible information in shaping vaccination decisions. Further exploration is needed, particularly with those who struggle to access or trust immunisation services.

Background: Engaging consumers is essential to ensure preventative health research addresses community needs. Engagement also facilitates translation of research findings and can result in more effective programs and policies. In Australia, there are currently limited published examples of how consumer engagement is implemented in immunisation research. The National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance invited members from its Consumer Advisory Group (CAG) to take part as individuals (‘consumer researchers’) in two research projects. With these consumer researchers as abstract co-authors, we reviewed the consumer researcher program together and aimed to measure consumer involvement and outcomes.

Methods: Over six months, 10 CAG members with diverse backgrounds and lived experiences were invited to become consumer researchers. To measure program outcomes, we conducted a document review of meeting minutes, meeting summaries and returned feedback on draft files. Structured team discussions also assessed perceived program value, factors influencing collaboration, and challenges of consumer involvement.

Results: Six consumers accepted invitations to participate. Two consumers attended two Stakeholder Advisory Group meetings and a strategy workshop. Here, consumers provided insights on current community vaccination barriers and proposed strategies to address these. Five consumers reviewed draft communication resources about adolescent immunisation. These consumers suggested where to apply plain language and new information. Both projects incorporated collected consumer insights into final reports and draft versions. This oriented our resources to end-user needs, and consumers reported a greater understanding of immunisation research. Challenges arose when consumer suggestions were misaligned with project scope or current evidence.

Conclusions: There are benefits and challenges with involving consumer perspectives in immunisation research. The consumer researcher program strengthened the researcher-consumer relationships between co-authors, highlighted future opportunities for consumers and added valuable consumer involvement. These findings should be of interest to other organisations looking to work with consumers in immunisation research or public health more broadly.

Abstract
Despite the availability of free immunization services, gaps in vaccine coverage persist, particularly in urban center's of Fiji. This study examines key challenges influencing child immunization rates, including global gaps—with an estimated 22 million infants unvaccinated worldwide—incomplete vaccination, and regional disparities, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Prior research, mainly from African regions such as Ethiopia, highlights varied and inconsistent findings on immunization determinants, with key factors including healthcare access and awareness, socioeconomic and demographic influences, and geographic and logistical barriers.
In the Pacific, social and cultural norms play a significant role in healthcare decisions, with increasing education levels among women reshaping traditional beliefs and immunization behavior's. However, limited research exists on immunization compliance in Fiji, particularly in urban settings. This study investigates the competing factors and barriers affecting mothers' decisions to engage in immunization programs for their children in Suva’s urban center's. The study aims to identify major predictors of immunization coverage, explore the in-country immunization system’s effectiveness, and recommend strategies to improve child immunization services. Furthermore, the behavior and attitude of the mother or caregiver – whether the grandmother, aunt, or a non-relative – play a crucial role in facilitating clear communication between the community and healthcare providers. This study explores the 5 key messages conveyed by healthcare workers to the community and examines whether these messages are perceived as important and influence timely childhood vaccination.
Using a qualitative approach, this research will employ survey questionnaires and key informant interviews with mothers and healthcare providers across four health facilities in Suva City. Findings from this study will inform policymakers on improving immunization program design and addressing barriers related to healthcare access, socioeconomic disparities, and cultural influences, ultimately enhancing child health outcomes in Fiji.

Background: A major component of work at the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance (NCIRS) relates to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It is known that benefits to individuals and their communities are strengthened by involving community in all stages of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health research and decision making. Therefore, this project describes the establishment of a broadly representative Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Group at NCIRS.

Methods: An internal NCIRS quality improvement project was undertaken. This involved a literature review and investigating staff’s experience and needs with respect to engaging with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Staff perspectives were gathered through a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. A public expression of interest for membership was disseminated nationally through websites, newsletters, community-controlled organisations, professional networks and word-of-mouth. The draft Terms of Reference, developed from the findings of the project, were provided to interested applicants and membership was subsequently confirmed.

Results: There was strong support for the Group and a recognised need to expand engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Embedding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices, priorities and data sovereignty were identified as key priorities. As of 27 Feb 2025, membership is comprised of 34 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander professionals with diverse experience and skills from all jurisdictions, including urban, rural and remote areas, with academic, clinical and public health backgrounds in university, government and Community Controlled Health Organisations.

Conclusions: The development of a national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Group at NCIRS is important for strengthening community engagement and embedding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices in the immunisation field. Moving forward, collaboration and meaningful relationships will be essential to the sustainability of the group and the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.


All research findings presented will be approved by the NCIRS National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Group.

Background:
Although uncommon, hypersensitivity reactions including urticaria, angioedema and respiratory symptoms within an hour of vaccination can occur. These can range from mild and self-limiting to severe reactions, including anaphylaxis. Anaphylaxis following vaccination is an extremely rare event, with an estimated incidence of 1.31 cases per million vaccine doses.

In Victoria, SAEFVIC serves as the designated reporting service for Adverse Events Following Immunisation (AEFI) and is integrated with clinical services. Over time, SAEFVIC has collaborated with the Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) Allergy & Immunology department to support children who experience immediate hypersensitivity reactions of varying severity following immunisation. This SAEFVIC/Allergy process has evolved in response to emerging evidence and internal experience, particularly around revaccination and recurrence of adverse events.

Results: From 2020 to 2024, 113 children aged 4 months to 17 years with immediate hypersensitivity AEFI reported to SAEFVIC were seen for specialist consultation in the RCH allergy clinic. Of these, 85 (75%) were revaccinated across 88 vaccine challenges with the same vaccine antigen(s) as in
their index reaction. Of those revaccinated, 50 (57%) underwent split-dose challenge and 12 (14%) received a full dose challenge under observation in the allergy Day Medical Unit (DMU); and 24 (27%) were immunised at the RCH Immunisation Centre with one hour of hospital observation. In 2020, two individuals underwent intradermal testing (IDT) or skin prick testing (SPT) prior to challenge; however, protocol changes have since discontinued this practice.

Of those revaccinated, 8 (7%) experienced another AEFI, majority being mild such as rashes (non-urticarial requiring no treatment) and injection site reactions. One individual, who initially developed angioedema and rash five minutes after receiving 18-month vaccines (ActHib, Infanrix, and ProQuad), later experienced anaphylaxis following the split-dose protocol (0.05mL followed by 0.45mL, 30 minutes apart) with the Varivax vaccine, managed with one dose of adrenaline.

Conclusion: SAEFVIC has successfully facilitated revaccination for children experiencing immediate vaccine hypersensitivity reactions through specialist paediatric allergy clinic services, promoting confidence and vaccine uptake in this group.