S OLUTION F LUENCY Zoe & William

T HE I SSUE 77,000 Australian children are not fully immunised, says research from the National Health Performance Authority

T HE F ACTS The Australian Government provides funding for kids’ immunisation However, more than 77,000 Australian kids are not fully immunised

L OW I MMUNISATION A REAS IN A USTRALIA Far West NSW - 85 per cent of children fully immunised at one year North Coast NSW - 88 per cent of children fully immunised at one year Fremantle WA - 90 per cent of children fully immunised at one year Eastern Sydney - 89 per cent of children fully immunised at two years Sunshine Coast - 89 per cent of children fully immunised at two years Perth Central & East Metro - 90 per cent per cent of children fully immunised at two years Eastern Sydney - 84 per cent of children fully immunised at five years North NSW Coast - 86 per cent of children fully immunised at five years Central Adelaide & Hills - 86 per cent of children fully immunised at five years Source: imunised/ imunised/

This list of low immunisation areas shows that the kids who are not fully immunised are not even just from rural or poorer areas, but even from areas such as Sydney’s eastern suburbs.

This would suggest the high rate of unvaccinated kids is not due to lack of medical resources, but due to misinformation and encouragement of parents not to immunise their kids from anti-vaccine campaigners. Dr Hambleton from the Australian Medical Association says, “"We need to look at the groups providing the anti-vaccination messages and make sure we stop them providing unbalanced information.”

T HE S OLUTION A nation-wide campaign to provide parents with the correct information regarding vaccination of children and correcting misinformation being promoted by anti-vaccine campaigners.

T HE C AMPAIGN In order for such a campaign to be effective, it needs to be promoted via a number of different media platforms, including television, billboards, the internet and newspapers. However, the most important place the campaign can be promoted is places where parents frequent, i.e., schools, childcare centres, doctors’ surgeries.