UWA has established a new vaccine research centre, called VaxPol Lab, which aims to improve our understanding on vaccination policy in WA and beyond.
The University of Western Australia (UWA) has established a new research centre, called VaxPol Lab, which brings together all the vaccination social science and policy research currently done at the university.
The new research centre is led by Dr Katie Attwell, from UWA’s School of Social Sciences and brings together various research arms from UWA, including the School of Social Sciences, the Law School, and the School of Allied Health.
“We need something like Vaxpol Lab because especially during these Covid vaccine rollout times there’s a lot of interest in all aspects of vaccination policy,” Dr Attwell said in a press release.
“It’s never been more important for us to understand vaccination, people’s acceptance of it, barriers to vaccination, and how to design good policy to promote vaccination,” she added.
About the new centre
The main purpose of the VaxPol Lab is to serve as an integration hub, to bring together multiple vaccination projects in the fields of social science and policy and spark collaboration, discussion and integration of research efforts.
“(VaxPol) enables us to build capacity in our younger researchers and helps us identify people who might want to step into that field if they’re interested in doing some research into vaccinations, and especially Covid-19 vaccinations,” Dr Attwell said.
In the future, the goal is for VaxPol to reach higher ground and become an ARC Centre of Excellence, which would provide further research funding and research support opportunities, generating a stronger impact on the community.
In practical terms, VaxPol has the potential to help with important aspects related to vaccination, like addressing vaccine refusal by some groups of the populations. Their ongoing project Coronavax is a good example, which aims to provide policy makers with critical information about stakeholder’s thoughts on vaccination policies. Read our story about Coronavax here.
But the purpose of VaxPol goes well beyond COVID-19. “In recent years Australia has rolled out pregnancy vaccines and that’s been something very new, and there will be more vaccines coming in pregnancy and more childhood vaccines rolled out in future,” Dr Attwell said.
“And eventually we’ll be getting Covid-19 vaccines for children, so it’s really about making sure that we have the critical mass in this state and building towards the critical mass for this country so we can answer the pressing questions for our future,” she added.
When the time comes, VaxPol may provide important information for the implementation of any vaccination strategies, in WA and beyond.
Current projects being developed at VaxPol include:
- Advancing Solutions for Addressing Vaccine Rejection: The Drivers and Impact of Mandatory Vaccination
- Country WA Immunisation Coverage Rates Scoping Project
- No Fault Compensation for Adverse Effects Following Vaccination
- Actively monitoring the safety of immunisation from community pharmacy
- No Jab, No Play, Which Way?
To learn more about these projects or to engage with research about vaccination policy or social science, head to the VaxPol Lab website, or contact Dr Attwell at katie.attwell@uwa.edu.au.
GPs interested in making a difference in Australia’s vaccination policies are encouraged to contact Dr Attwell at coronavax@uwa.edu.au to share their thoughts and take part of an interview.
“We’re hoping that as the WA and Australian community becomes aware of Vaxpol Lab they will come to us if they have vaccination policy or social science research questions they need answering,” Dr Attwell said.