A Simulator to Assist Innovations in Vaccine Delivery

Qingfeng Li of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the U.S. will develop a computational simulation tool to optimize the design of health campaigns in low-income settings. Health campaigns are complex events involving multiple, interconnected components, such as families and socioeconomic contexts, as well as being time restricted and targeting specific populations. Their tool uses geospatial measures and community maps, and it includes an automated algorithm to test different design strategies to identify the optimal design. They will develop their tool and test whether it can improve the vaccination rate from the current average of 30% to 50% for a selected immunization campaign in Ethiopia, where rates are low and uneven across the country.