A team of mathematicians and economists at Warwick and Oxford is building computer models to predict whether new vaccines are worth the cost, before the government decides whether to roll them out. This matters because the UK’s vaccine advisory body, JCVI, relies on these predictions to make decisions that affect millions of people. Without reliable models, policymakers would have to guess which vaccines to fund, for whom, and when. The team has already provided this kind of analysis for HPV, pertussis, pneumococcal disease, seasonal influenza, and COVID-19—helping to set policy on vaccine prioritisation, dose intervals, and booster targeting. If the research succeeds, it will give JCVI and the Department of Health and Social Care a clearer picture of the likely costs, benefits, and uncertainties of vaccination programmes against chickenpox, RSV, and long-term seasonal COVID-19 boosters. The models will also account for inequalities in vaccine uptake and hesitancy, so that future programmes do not inadvertently widen health gaps. The team will share their methods with UKHSA and other academic groups, raising the standard of vaccine modelling across the country.
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Quantitative scientific input is a key element in public-health decision making. The approval of new vaccines (with the exception of the recent COVID-19 vaccine) requires a health-economic assessment that predicts the likely costs, benefits and cost-effectiveness together with quantifications of uncertainty surrounding these estimates. The Warwick/Oxford MEMVIE (Mathematical & Economic Modelling for Vaccination and Immunisation Evaluation) team has been providing this type of prediction to JCVI (the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation) since 2014 and has generated models, projections and analysis on gender neutral vaccination against human papillomavirus, pertussis, pneumococcal disease and seasonal influenza. Most recently, the team has been working on modelling vaccination against COVID-19, helping to underpin UK policy on vaccine prioritisation, dose interval, vaccination of children and targeting of boosters. In this project, the MEMVIE team will continue to develop predictive health-economic models to assist JCVI in their decision-making, as guided by DHSC (Department for Health and Social Care). These models require two main components: an epidemiological model that can predict the likely impacts of changes to any vaccination programme, including the start of a new programme; and a health-economic component that can assess the costs and benefits of the impact. These will be based on current state-of-the-art approaches, that account for the latest epidemiological understanding of the infection and that are matched to the latest available data from the UK. Although the work streams will be guided by priorities from DHSC throughout the award, we consider the following as highly informative subprojects: a health-economic evaluation of COVID-19 vaccination (considering long-term seasonal boosters), an assessment of pneumococcal vaccination, and the start of programmes against chickenpox and RSV. There are four areas in which this new application has been expanded compared to our previous work. Public and patient involvement (PPI) is given a more prominent role, being worked into each aspect of the modelling and health economics. We have a greater focus on inequalities, either as a result of underlying socio-demographic, socio-economic and health inequalities or due to lower vaccine uptake. We will consider vaccine hesitancy in more detail, aiming to predict the likely uptake of any new programme as well as correlations with socio-demographic, socio-economic and behavioural factors. Finally, we will place a greater emphasis on public communication and outreach, beyond the dissemination to direct stakeholders and academic audiences. In addition, we fully recognise the wider skill-set of vaccine modelling and health-economics that exists in the UK, and throughout the project will look to interact closely with UKHSA (UK Health Security Agency) and other academic institutions, sharing best practice and hosting visits and workshops.
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