About us
The National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance of Vaccine Preventable Diseases (NCIRS) was established at the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children, now known as The Children's Hospital at Westmead, by the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing in August 1997.
NCIRS has partnerships with the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing, NSW Department of Health and The Children's Hospital at Westmead. Core funding for the Centre is provided through these partnerships.
The Centre is affiliated with the Discipline of Paediatrics and Child Health and the School of Public Health of the University of Sydney.
Since its inception, NCIRS has expanded considerably both in staff numbers and research activity and has gained significant national and international recognition.
The Centre's primary function is to perform research aimed at reducing the incidence of vaccine preventable diseases and improving vaccine uptake, in children and adults.
NCIRS provides independent expert advice on all aspects of vaccine preventable diseases and social and other issues related to immunisation. The Centre also has a strong role in providing postgraduate training and supervision.
Our research and surveillance activities cover the broad areas of:
- vaccine preventable disease burden
- serosurveillance
- immunisation coverage and the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register
- adverse events associated with immunisation
- social research and risk communication
- indigenous health
- immunisation program evaluations
- infectious disease modelling, and
- clinical research
Other activities involve evidence based support for the development of immunisation policy in Australia, and support for the development and updating of The Australian Immunisation Handbook.
NCIRS also contributes to immunisation and surveillance policy and planning through its representatives on, and reports for, a range of policy and planning groups including the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation, the National Immunisation Committee and the Communicable Diseases Network Australia.
NCIRS brings together a group of experts and postgraduate students in public health, preventive medicine, paediatrics, internal medicine, infectious diseases, epidemiology, and laboratory and social sciences.
Information on this website is independently developed, published, managed and updated on a regular basis by NCIRS staff from the relevant research divisions of NCIRS. Content is reviewed and approved by senior staff members. NCIRS periodically conducts reviews of information presented on its website. We welcome any comments or input regarding the website.
NCIRS receives funding from a variety of sources. Core funders have the right of review of NCIRS publications, when applicable; however, NCIRS maintains editorial control over all web content, publications and print materials.
