Mistrust A Factor As Childhood Vaccination Rates Fall, Campaign Aims 'To Empower Whānau'

Health New Zealand has launched the second phase of its childhood immunisation campaign aimed at tackling the slump in the number of vaccinations post-Covid.

Called Story to Tell, the campaign involves a song by Betty-Anne that's inspired by the whānau's personal stories.

Latest statistics show childhood vaccination rates were as low as 63 percent coverage in 2022, Health NZ South Island's regional clinical director of public health medicine Dr Ramon Pink told Nine to Noon.

Now the overall coverage for the Māori population was just over 71 percent, although there was some regional variation and that compared to New Zealand's overall rate of 83 percent, he said.

Before Covid childhood immunisation rates were in the high 80s, and the numbers were also higher for Māori at this time, he said.

"So we've got some work to do and I think that's why this campaign is really important."

Last year health providers raised concerns that a growing number of families living in communities most vulnerable to infectious disease outbreaks were refusing to have their children vaccinated.

Immunisation experts feared the trend would make it impossible to reach the government's target of 95 percent coverage by 2030.

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Pink said they were still working to understand why childhood vaccination rates had dropped, but mistrust contributed to those lower figures.

Other issues included priorities for families who were struggling, he said.

"Getting your priorities right, you know cost of living, food on table, keeping warm, you know some of those basic elements, they do take precedence over something like this."

Health staff understood this and knew that it needed to be taken into consideration, he said.

It was also difficult to get in to see GPs these days and good primary healthcare was pivotal to any discussion about vaccination, he said.

"And if we're not able to get there [to a GP] as often as we need to that does have an impact."

Others were very clear that they had made their decision not to vaccinate their children and did not want to engage, he said.

"So navigating all of those things, developing a trust enhancing campaign which I think this campaign has the elements of is really important, letting people see themselves in it with all of those challenges I've just described, seeing a story, seeing themselves in that story is really important."

Pink said the campaign started when there was a measles outbreak last year and whānau began to tell their stories about immunisation.

"I really admire the courage of whānau in doing this, you know talking about not immunising their first child and then delaying second child and then seen, having lived experience of one of their children with measles," he said.

"Then deciding okay I need to do this in a timely way, I need to do the vaccines as the schedule is laid out in front of me."

People often did not realise that measles could be a very serious disease, he said.

Under the National Childhood Immunisation Schedule, the MMR vaccine is given at 12 and 15 months.

Young adults born from the mid-1990s and early 2000s were the most at risk of catching measles due to missed vaccinations, along with pre-schoolers born since Covid-19, due to access problems and rising vaccine hesitancy.

Another story revolved around someone who had immunodeficiency which meant he did not have the natural protection that immunisation boosts.

"So having conversations with whānau about that vulnerability and encouraging immunisation in that setting is also really important."

As people see themselves in those stories it starts a conversation and leads them to seek advice from those they trust, he said.

Putting the information into a song, as Betty-Anne had, was another way to get the message across, he said.

"We're wanting to empower whānau, we're wanting to say 'what's your story' and let that conversation start so they can eventually get to a place where they can make their decisions."

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