You are here: Home / NCIRS / Research / Vaccine policy / Policy support

Policy Support

NCIRS has a team of staff that provides research and technical support for the development of immunisation policy in Australia. This work is done mainly in conjunction with the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI), a ministerial advisory group of the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing. NCIRS staff support up to six concurrently operating working parties of ATAGI.

These working parties are usually formed to examine vaccine preventable diseases where there are new questions regarding disease control or new vaccines available.

From July 2005, NCIRS has supported a number of ATAGI working parties including:

  • rotavirus working party
  • human papillomavirus (HPV) working party
  • measles-mumps-rubella-varicella (MMRV) and herpes zoster (HZ) working party
  • pneumococcal disease working party
  • seasonal influenza working party
  • pertussis working party and, most recently
  • pandemic H1N1 influenza working party.

The role of NCIRS includes the coordination of literature searching, critical appraisal, systematic review, scientific writing of draft documents for review by working party members and subsequently ATAGI and, in some cases, new data analyses or disease modelling projects.

NCIRS staff assigned to ATAGI working parties also contribute to drafting ATAGI advice to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC) who consider the cost-effectiveness of vaccines for inclusion on either the National Immunisation Program (NIP) or the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).

For information on the PBAC process, see New arrangements for vaccines: ATAGI and PBAC.