Breaking the Barriers: How Gender Equity Advances Immunization
Published on June 22, 2023
Attention to how gender norms and roles impact vaccination coverage, and access to health services in general, has increased in recent years. Understanding and addressing how gender impacts access to and delivery of vaccines impacts vaccination rates and especially reaching zero-dose children. In light of this, the International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC) has highlighted several initiatives that support the connection between gender equity and immunization:
- IVAC’s Value of Immunization Compendium of Evidence (VoICE) Project stockpiles the latest research on the relationship between gender equity and immunization.
- Vaccine Economics Research for Sustainability and Equity (VERSE) Toolkit developed by IVAC health economists, who discovered in a study that maternal education is a major contributor to vaccine inequity. The toolkit offers resources and analyzes publically available Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) data and is available in open access form here.
- IVAC published the Knowledge Summary, which synthesizes the latest research on the role of gender in addressing zero-dose children and immunization equity, and the Advocacy Brief, which offers an overview of how gender equity impacts immunization, to explore gender-related barriers to immunization.
- The Johns Hopkins Maternal and Child Health Center in India's new initiative the Maternal and Child Health Utilization and Equity Study (MATCHES). This study looked at how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the utilization of healthcare among women and children in India.
- IVAS works on the Maternal Immunization Readiness Initiative (MIRI) with Jhpiego on implementation and communication research to understand the impact of vaccination during pregnancy in Kenya and Bangladesh. IVAC is conducting qualitative research to determine knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors that affect vaccine decision-making among pregnant women in addition to developing communication strategies to increase vaccine demand.
- IVAC researcher Svea Closser, PhD, MPH co-designed an initiative to support female frontline health workers to help them find solutions to end polio in Pakistan, where women are put in charge and are at the forefront of decision making. This initiative has been scaled up to the national level across Pakistan, with the participation of thousands of female healthcare workers. Read more about the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.