CCHE Seminar Series: Guidelines for the Economic Evaluation of Vaccination Programs and Integration of Economic Evidence for NACI’s Vaccine Recommendations in Canada
Guidelines for the Economic Evaluation of Vaccination Programs and Integration of Economic Evidence for NACI’s Vaccine Recommendations in Canada
Beate Sander & Ashleigh Tuite
University of Toronto, University Health Network
Friday April 19, 2024, Zoom **Please Note This Session is Virtual Only**
Abstract: The National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) at the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) makes recommendations on the use of human vaccines in Canada. Traditionally, NACI reviewed vaccine characteristics and burden of illness. With its recent expanded mandate, NACI now considers cost-effectiveness via economic evaluations, among other programmatic factors. This session will provide an overview of NACI’s new Guidelines for the Economic Evaluation of Vaccination Programs in Canada. Unlike many other health technologies, vaccines have the potential to affect both vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals through externalities (e.g., community/herd immunity, age-shifting of disease), and spillover effects (e.g., to caregivers). The Guidelines consider these population-level impacts as well as non-health sector impacts (e.g., productivity, consumption, education). To account for the full range of impacts of vaccination programs, a key recommendation from the Guidelines is to have the reference case analyses conducted from two perspectives: publicly funded health system and societal. Further, the Guidelines highlight integrating equity considerations into economic evaluations, especially in the context of vaccination. The session will also discuss NACI’s process for incorporating economic evidence into federal vaccine decision-making, such as how different types of economic evidence are generated and used.
Beate Sander, RN MBA MEcDev PhD, holds a Canada Research Chair in Economics of Infectious Diseases, is a Senior Scientist at the Toronto General Hospital Research Institute, University Health Network (UHN), and Professor at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation (IHPME), University of Toronto. She holds appointments as Adjunct Senior Scientist at ICES and Adjunct Scientist at Public Health Ontario (PHO). Dr. Sander is an internationally recognized leader in infectious disease economics with extensive expertise in health economics and simulation modeling. Her research focus is on assessing infectious disease interventions using simulation modeling and on estimating the burden of infectious diseases using population-based data. Dr. Sander is an expert to national and international advisory bodies, including Canada’s National Advisory Committee for Immunization (NACI), where she chaired the Economics Task Group and co-chaired the Economic Guidelines Task Group. Dr. Sander held several leadership roles during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading timely evidence generation and knowledge mobilization. Dr. Sander is Past President of the International Society for Medical Decision Making.
Ashleigh Tuite is an infectious disease epidemiologist whose research focuses on the use of mathematical modeling and other quantitative methods to improve decision-making for emerging, re-emerging, and endemic communicable diseases. She is particularly interested in the use of mathematical models to synthesize and communicate complex information and uncertainty. She is Manager of Health Economics and Modelling at the National Advisory Committee on Immunization Secretariat at the Public Health Agency of Canada and an Assistant Professor with the Dalla Lana School of Public Health.
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