The Australian Immunisation Register (AIR): Insights from working with AIR data

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Health Informatics
• Epidemiology

Background:

• Established in 1996 as the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register (ACIR) for children under 7.
• Expanded in 2016 to the whole-of-life Australian Immunisation Register (AIR).
• ACIR/AIR captures comprehensive vaccination details for ongoing public health monitoring.

Purpose of the Study:

• To provide an overview of the Australian Immunisation Register (AIR).
• To detail the management of health information within AIR.
• To demonstrate how AIR data facilitates insights into vaccination reporting trends.

Main Methods:

• Review of formal and grey literature on ACIR/AIR operations and use.
• Analysis of AIR data to track evolution of data transmission and provider settings.
• Authors possess 58 years of collective experience in ACIR/AIR data analysis.

Main Results:

• Description of policy and program changes driving ACIR-AIR expansion.
• Detailed AIR data fields and methodology for measuring population vaccination coverage.
• Evidence of increasing electronic data transmission (56% in 2014 to 89% in 2023 for children <10 years) and rise in pharmacy vaccinations (0.9% to 26.9% for adult flu vaccines 2017-2023).

Conclusions:

• The AIR is vital for monitoring and evaluating Australia's life-course immunisation programs.
• AIR data supports public health surveillance, research, and vaccine effectiveness studies.
• Health information managers play a key role in contributing to AIR through data management.