Leveraging Data Science to Improve Vaccine Equity and Pandemic Preparedness among Children Who are Newcomers to Canada

Shaun Morris, Temerty Faculty of Medicine; Mariano Consens, Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering; Pierre-Philippe Piché-Renaud, Temerty Faculty of Medicine

Immunization is one of the most important tools to support healthy childhood, benefiting both individuals and populations. Pandemic preparedness requires understanding of whose immunizations are complete and whose have gaps. Vaccine records for the many migrants that Canada receives each year may be in other languages, scripts, and formats, making their translation and interpretation more challenging and time-consuming than most providers and public health units can handle. The resulting immunization documentation delays posed by translation and interpretation challenges introduce infectious disease-related risks to individuals and populations both during, and between, pandemics and can prevent children’s access to school in Ontario due to provincial legislation. As a result, many newcomer families that are already at elevated risk of vaccine-preventable diseases experience delays in updating their children’s routine vaccines, entering school, and integrating into their new communities, thus exacerbating inequity, and limiting pandemic readiness.