Survey

This survey aims to hear your perspective about the accessibility of child immunisation services in North Queensland, as part of a project to help increase accessibility to child immunisation and lift vaccination coverage across the region.

Please read the information below carefully before commencing the survey.

About the project

Northern Queensland Primary Health Network (NQPHN) is one of the 31 regionalised and independent PHNs established nationally by the Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care to provide local communities with better access to improved primary healthcare services. The NQPHN region extends from St Lawrence in the south coast, up to the Torres Strait in the north, and west to Croydon and Kowanyama. NQPHN aims to improve health outcomes for all residents by supporting, investing in, and working collaboratively with local Hospital and Health Services, the primary healthcare sector, local government areas (LGAs), other health organisations and the wider community.

Child immunisation as an important priority for children's health and community wellbeing. In recent years, the rate of children who are fully vaccinated at one, two and five years of age in North Queensland has been declining. There remains a gap in the rates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who are fully vaccinated compared to non-Indigenous children, and there are several geographic areas within our region that have low levels of coverage.

NQPHN is seeking to understand the barriers, enablers and opportunities relating to child immunisation services, to help inform our work in future to improve accessibility and lift coverage rates in our region.

About this survey

This online survey aims to understand and record the perspectives and experiences about child immunisation of:

parents and caregivers of children aged 0 to 4 years (i.e. infants and pre-school)
people working in health services/settings that deliver child immunisation
people working in other services/settings that work closely with children aged 0 to 4 years and their families (e.g. early education; family support services)

The survey will ask you several questions about child immunisation from your family’s experience or in your work with young children and families. Questions will cover aspects such as:

perceptions and intentions around child immunisation
availability and awareness of child immunisation service providers/settings
barriers and challenges to accessing immunisation, such as attitudes, affordability and availability
enablers or factors that help to support access and uptake of child immunisation
opportunities to strengthen access to immunisation services.

The survey is intended to be reasonably brief — we estimate that it will only take about 10-15 minutes of your time to complete. The survey is entirely voluntary to respond to.

This survey is being hosted by Beacon Strategies, a health consultancy organisation that has been engaged to lead this project on behalf of NQPHN.

If you require any assistance to access or complete the survey, our team will be happy to help — please contact us via the email below and we will make arrangements with you.

How we’ll use the information you provide

Please note that you will not be required to share your name or any other personal information with us as part of completing the survey — we will ask you to select a general perspective for your response and the region that you live/work in.

You are free to share as much or as little detail as you wish in your responses. Please note that if you choose to share any information that might identify you, you agree to this information being disclosed between the Beacon Strategies project team and NQPHN. All individual responses will be collated, analysed and summarised as part of a report back to NQPHN of the findings of the project — NQPHN may choose to share a version of this report publicly.

For more information

If you have any questions about the project, we encourage you to reach out to our project team via email to elliot@beaconstrategies.net.

About your perspective

Please note that the set of questions that you see later in this survey will be based on the response you provide to the question below.

Please indicate which of the following best describes the perspective from which you’re completing this survey… *

Parent/caregiver of a child aged 0 to 4 yearsHealth professional/administrator working in general practice settingHealth professional/administrator working in HHS community health serviceHealth professional/administrator working in Aboriginal community-controlled health serviceWorking with children aged 0 to 4 years and families in another setting (e.g. child development; early education; family support)

For parents/caregivers/community members

Of the following settings, which have your child/children previously accessed to receive an immunisation?

Please specify which other...

Barriers you have experienced

The next few questions will ask you about various barriers that you might have experienced in accessing child immunisation services — barriers are those things that might have made it difficult to access or led to a negative experience.

Please tell us about any barriers you have experienced relating to ...

your awareness of child immunisation... *Awareness means what you know about vaccines, where to get them, their benefits and risks etc.

your acceptance of child immunisation... *Acceptance means whether you want your child/children to be immunised and the reasons why/why not

the affordability of child immunisation... *Affordability includes any direct cost of the service itself, but also indirect costs with time off work or travel

your access to child immunisation services... *Access means how easy it is to safely and easily get to an available immunisation service

your motivation to access child immunisation... *Motivation means how likely you are to act on keeping your child/children’s immunisations up to date, even if you’re aware of and accepting of immunisation.

Enablers and opportunities

From your experience, what have you found to be most helpful for you/your family to make child immunisation easier to access? *

In your opinion, what are the main opportunities to make child immunisation services more accessible and to increase the number of children who are fully vaccinated in your community? *

For professionals/providers working with children and families

Barriers experienced by families

The next few questions will ask you about different types of barriers that may be experienced by families in accessing immunisation services that you have observed in your work. Barriers include factors that prevent or make it difficult for a family to access immunisation, or result in a a negative experience when they do.

Please provide your response as a comment.

What barriers have you observed relating to awareness of child immunisation? *Awareness means what people know about vaccines, where to get them, their benefits and risks etc.

What barriers have you observed relating to acceptance of child immunisation? *Acceptance means whether a parent/caregiver wants their child/children to be immunised and the reasons why/why not

What barriers have you observed relating to the affordability of child immunisation? *Affordability includes any direct cost of the service itself, but also indirect costs with time off work or travel

What barriers have you observed relating to access to child immunisation services? *Access means how easy (or not) it is to safely and easily get to an available immunisation service.

What barriers have you observed relating to motivation to access child immunisation? *Motivation means how likely it is for a parent/caregiver to act on keeping their child/children’s immunisations up to date, even if they are aware of and accepting of immunisation

Barriers experienced by immunisation providers

The next question relates specifically to barriers that may be experienced by providers of immunisation services.

In addition to the barriers experienced by families above, what are the main barriers experienced by immunisation providers to deliver accessible, high quality and culturally appropriate immunisation services?

Enablers and opportunities

From your experience, what are the key factors (or enablers) that make child immunisation easier for people that you work with to access? This might identify things that have worked well or received positive feedback previously. *

In your opinion, what are the main opportunities to make child immunisation services more accessible and to increase the number of children who are fully vaccinated in the region? *

You have now completed all of the questions in this survey. Thank you for taking the time to share your perspective with us.

Before finishing, please share any additional comments, suggestions or feedback on the project in the box below, otherwise please click ‘Submit’ to submit your response and exit the survey.