On May 17-18, 2016, over 70 policy-makers, academic researchers and global health organization representatives filled the Westin D.C. City Center ballroom in Washington, D.C. to attend the workshop “Immunization Costing: what have we learned, can we do better” – sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The workshop aimed to bring together experts in immunization costing, financing, and efficiency from different backgrounds to share new knowledge on the subject and provoke conversations to improve immunization delivery and future immunization costing studies.
The EPIC project collected immunization costing and financing data at central, subnational, and facility-level in Benin, Ghana, Uganda, Zambia, Honduras, and Moldova and was notable for its rigor in sample design and comprehensiveness of resource use measurement. The study involved over 300 healthcare facilities in the six countries, the largest immunization costing study of its kind.
In addition to the new analyses from the EPIC study, the workshop also featured new knowledge from studies across the globe, evaluation of country usage of immunization program cost data, identifying opportunities to improve the design of future studies, and specific focus groups and panel discussions to better understand the need of stakeholders in implementing and expanding immunization programs.
