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SENSE

Strengthening National Immunization Technical Advisory Groups and their evidence-based decision making in the WHO European Region and globally

Duration: 2023 - 2025

Partner countries: Focus on Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Montenegro, the Republic of Moldova, Serbia, Tajikistan, Türkiye, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan, and globally

Partner institutions:

  • WHO Regional Office for Europe, Denmark
  • WHO Headquarters, Switzerland
  • Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), Canada
  • Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), USA

Involved RKI units: Unit 33, ZKI-PH 5

Challenges addressed by the project

National Immunization Technical Advisory Groups (NITAGs) are multidisciplinary expert groups providing recommendations to Ministries of Health to support country-owned, evidence-based, and sustainable decision-making on immunization policies. Recently established NITAGs in the WHO European Region, primarily in middle income countries, are often not fully functional. Most lack a scientifically operating secretariat or systematic processes for recommendation-making. In 2021, only 35 out of 50 NITAGs established in the Region met all six WHO indicators for NITAG functionality.

Systematic reviews are gold standard to synthesize best available evidence. However, conducting and identifying systematic reviews requires significant resources that NITAGs may lack.

Objectives

This project aims to strengthen the capacities and functioning of NITAGs within the WHO European Region and globally by:

  1. improving NITAGs structure and functioning in line with WHO recommendations;
  2. implementing a systematic evidence-based recommendation-making process;
  3. enhancing NITAG collaborations;
  4. developing an artificial-intelligence (AI)-based dashboard to identify, synthesize and display systematic reviews on vaccines and vaccine-preventable diseases, replacing the existing manual SYSVAC registry of systematic reviews on immunization topics.

The project builds on two successfully implemented former GHPP projects (EURO NITAGs and SYSVAC) that merged into the two modules of the project.

Overview of activities

In the upcoming three years, the following activities are planned:

  1. develop improvement plans for NITAGs targeted in the project;
  2. implement the improvement plans by developing resources to support the functionality of NITAGs and conducting trainings on the Evidence to Recommendation Process and manual SYSVAC registry;
  3. assess the impact of the implementation of improvement plan (change of maturity of NITAGs);
  4. develop an AI-based dashboard prototype that supports the finding and use of systematic reviews;
  5. user evaluation of AI-based dashboard prototype by stakeholders and NITAGs;
  6. adapt the AI-based prototype to the evaluation results.

Through these activities the SENSE project intends to support NITAGs to become independent, well-functioning, visible and trustworthy advisory bodies that enable policy makers within WHO-EURO and globally to take evidence-informed decisions in immunization topics.

Date: 14.04.2023

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