Missed Opportunities for Vaccination Equity (MOVE)

Anita Shet of Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in the U.S. will seek to increase childhood vaccination coverage in India and Nigeria by identifying opportunities for catch-up vaccinations when under-vaccinated children are hospitalized. Of the three million people who die each year from vaccine-preventable diseases, about half are children under the age of five, many of whom live in areas where vaccinations are available, but inequitably distributed. Inadequately vaccinated children frequently become sick and are hospitalized, yet most leave the hospital without receiving catch-up vaccines because of physical and policy barriers, or perceived contraindications. They will engage stakeholders, including hospital policy makers and community workers to launch MOVE (Missed Opportunities for Vaccine Equity) to identify and correct missed opportunities for vaccination by using child hospital visits to provide vaccine education and access. MOVE has three components: inpatient in-reach, where MOVE staff check immunization records and inform hospital personnel of missing vaccines; immunization service linkage to inpatient care, which ensures that vaccines are available and provides a vaccination schedule at discharge; and community outreach to provide follow-up reminders and education. They will modify an immunization application and reminder tool to record the data and maintain a cloud-based registry, and test their approach in two large community hospitals in India and Nigeria.