Immunization Analysis and Insights
The Immunization Analysis & Insights Unit is a data hub and analytics engine for immunization data and performs analytics. The unit supports the work of other technical units within the department of Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals (IVB) and drives innovation in data quality and use in countries. It also has responsibility for IVB’s global work on VPD surveillance and generating data and evidence on the public health and economic impact of vaccines.

Value of Vaccines

Value of vaccines graphic
Estimating the value and public health impact of vaccines is critical to ensure evidence-based policy decision making in both pre- and post-licensure stages. Increased understanding of the full benefit of vaccination beyond direct prevention from the disease and including impact on the life course of vaccinated persons, the wider community, health systems can help to foster public health equity, and estimate value to local and national economies.

WHO’s role is to provide member states, global policy makers, funding entities and the vaccine R&D community with authoritative advice on the full value of vaccines assessments, robust modelling approaches, and reliable methods to undertake economic assessments to support country decision making in the immunization field.

Normative guidance

IVIR-AC

Immunization and vaccines related implementation research advisory committee (IVIR-AC)  is tasked with reviewing vaccine related quantitative methods and implementation research, and to advise the Department of Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals (IVB) on their relevance and applicability.

Technical work areas to support country decision-making

Modelling

Modelling has played an increasingly important role in informing decisions around immunization strategy, policy and programs. As a simple representation of complex reality, models have been used to integrate data and evidence from different domains to estimate, project or forecast health and economic outcomes of vaccination, under a variety of scenarios and assumptions, to respond to pertinent questions.

Economics

National governments require economic data on the burden of vaccine preventable diseases, delivery costs of immunization programmes or new vaccine introduction, and the cost effectiveness of vaccines, to inform the allocation of limited resources and prioritization of interventions in the health sector. WHO supports decision making and implementation efforts in countries, by developing normative guidance and tools to help assess the economic burden of disease and estimate the impact of vaccines in countries, particularly in low resource settings. 

Priority setting

In resource-constrained settings, an increasingly compelling rationale will be needed to ensure priorities set by countries are aligned with country needs, including the introduction of new vaccines within immunization programs, over and above many other priorities. WHO supports countries with priority setting by developing normative guidance and tools that support countries with making transparent and evidence-informed decisions. The Country-led Assessment for Prioritisation on Immunisation (CAPACITI) project aims to strengthen the ability of LMICs to evaluate immunisation options according to their priorities and programme context, both for national immunisation programme decisions and to inform vaccine supply, research and development.

Value assessment frameworks

Full value of vaccines assessment (FVVA)

The pathway from vaccine product concept, through development, licensure and deployment is costly and inherently risky for manufacturers, particularly for vaccines against diseases where the burden is predominantly in LMICs.  To reduce the uncertainty in investment and inform potential introduction decisions, IVB has developed a framework and methodology to broaden the evaluation of ‘vaccine value’ beyond solely the demonstration of individual health benefits, to include broader socioeconomic and indirect impact(s) that the vaccine could have.  This concept is known as the ‘Full Vaccine Value Assessment’ or FVVA, and is considered a critical analysis to inform prioritization for investment and eventual uptake.