VWA 2017 PLANNING EVALUATION AND REPORTING PLANNING & VWA EVALUATION WORKBOOK 2017
“#GetVax to celebrate a 15th healthy tomorrow!” Anniversary National Plans: Due by February 28th of VWA Final Reports: Due by June 15th
1 VWA 2017 PLANNING EVALUATION AND REPORTING 15th Anniversary of Vaccination Week in the Americas Planning and Evaluation Workbook 2017
VWA 2017 Slogan: “#GetVax to celebrate a healthy tomorrow!”
15th Vaccination Week in the Americas (VWA) 6th World Immunization Week (WIW) VWA 2017 dates: April 22nd-29th
This April, the countries and territories of the Americas and the Pan American Health Organization will celebrate two important public health milestones related to immunization: the 40th anniversary of the formation of the Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) – which has led to some of the biggest achievements in disease elimination in the Western hemisphere – and the 15th anniversary of Vaccination Week in the Americas (VWA).
This year’s theme will be a birthday party, and the regional slogan is: “#GetVax to celebrate a healthy tomorrow!”. In honor of the 15th birthday of VWA, we will celebrate 15 of the Region’s vaccination-related public health achievements over the last 15 years. The celebration of these achievements is a huge milestone for all countries, EPI teams, and health care workers. The messages related to these achievements will be focused towards the health community.
For the public audience, the slogan will encourage people to celebrate the fact that vaccines promote a healthy tomorrow by preventing diseases, and encourage people to get vaccinated, protect themselves and their families against vaccine-preventable diseases, and celebrate their health. The call to action for this audience is to get vaccinated and make sure their loved ones are vaccinated too.
Countries are encouraged to use the birthday party theme and local celebration customs in the celebration of their respective vaccination weeks.
Every year, VWA is an opportunity to reach underserved populations, and for the 15th anniversary, we would like to encourage special efforts geared at high-risk population groups and underserved areas, especially indigenous populations.
Country and territory participation in Vaccination Week in the Americas (VWA) is flexible and goals and activities for the initiative should be chosen in accordance with national health objectives.
However, In order to streamline both the planning and reporting of the VWA campaigns and activities across the Region, we have created a new template for all country plans and final reports.
These templates serve as the minimum amount of information we would like to collect at the regional level from all countries. However, if your country would like to provide additional
2 VWA 2017 PLANNING EVALUATION AND REPORTING information, beyond what is requested in the template, we welcome countries to send this additional information as annexes to the plan/report.
The plan and report are set up with similar formats in order to facilitate this process, and the information being requested aligns with the goals of the program, as outlined in the Regional Immunization Action Plan (RIAP) approved by all Ministers of Health during PAHO’s Directing Council in 2015 as the guiding document for immunization programs in the Americas 2016-2020.
The RIAP is available here: http://www.paho.org/hq/index.php? option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=31248&Itemid=270&lang=en
Countries are kindly requested to submit VWA plans by 28 February and VWA final reports by June 15th to the regional PAHO office so that this information can be consolidated and disseminated at the regional and global levels.
Vaccination Week Objectives
The overarching objectives of the initiative are:
To promote equity and access to immunization To promote the transition from child to family immunization To promote communication and cooperation between countries To maintain immunization on the political agenda To serve as a platform for integrated activities
Campaign Materials
In February, the designs of the posters and stickers will be available for download through the VWA webpage (www.paho.org/vwa).
PAHO can send a number of VWA promotional posters and stickers by mail for distribution at the local level. However, due to the high cost of sending them, the amount that PAHO can send is not very high. If your country requires more posters, you should plan to print them at the local level.
Electronic versions of these materials (in Spanish, English, Creole, French and Portuguese), as well as many other technical and communication resources, will be available for download via the VWA website (www.paho.org/vwa).
If your country wishes to receive digital copies of the posters in other local languages, please notify PAHO before February 28, 2017.
Social Media
Regional messages for Facebook and Twitter will be developed and shared with countries in March.
PSAs will be created and distributed online and on social media networks. 3 VWA 2017 PLANNING EVALUATION AND REPORTING
We will encourage sharing of photos on social media with the regional slogan and hashtag #GetVax.
Evaluation Activities
It is important to periodically assess and adapt VWA activities to make sure they are as effective as they can be. This evaluation can help identify areas for improvement and help realize goals more efficiently. PAHO highly encourages countries to undertake evaluation activities and then report the results to PAHO.
The evaluation technique should be adapted to your specific program. However, some examples of this could be a short survey during VWA to evaluate public confidence and satisfaction with vaccination or a survey to evaluate the effectiveness of the VWA social communication campaign. Models for these surveys are available online and the links are in the annex section at the end of this document.
Beyond this, countries are encouraged to develop their own evaluation strategies, and if required, PAHO/WHO can provide technical assistance for the development of these strategies.
Vaccination Week in the Americas Background
Originally launched in 2003, VWA is an annual initiative endorsed by PAHO’s Directing Council. The idea for VWA was first proposed in 2002 by the Ministers of Health in the Andean Region to protect the Americas from the resurgence of measles. From 2003 to 2016, as a result of activities conducted under the framework of VWA, more than 640 million individuals have been vaccinated against a wide variety of diseases. VWA has also helped to highlight the essential work of national immunization programs and the importance of vaccination for the general public; the initiative is also increasingly being used by countries as an opportunity to integrate other preventative interventions with immunization activities.
World Immunization Week Background In recent years, other regions of the World Health Organization (WHO) have implemented similar Vaccination/Immunization Week initiatives, culminating in the creation of World Immunization Week (WIW) in 2012, the umbrella initiative that unites all global efforts. WIW is focusing on a multi-year theme: “Close the Immunization Gap”. For more information on WIW and access to additional global communication resources, please visit: http://www.who.int/campaigns/immunization-week/2016/event/en/
ANNEXES
4 VWA 2017 PLANNING EVALUATION AND REPORTING Annex 1: Planning Template – VWA 2017
Annex 2: Final Report Template – VWA 2017
Annex 3: Reference list of VWA Indicators
Annex 4: A model survey to evaluate public confidence and satisfaction with vaccination.
Annex 5: Evaluation of VWA Social Communication Campaign
Annex 6: Discussion Guide for Planning Border
Additional planning materials are available on our website: www.paho.org/vwa
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