Australian public health policy in 2003 – 2004

Table 2 New VPD awareness matrix

	Argument – do we have good epidemiological evidence	What are the political risks in not funding this vaccine?	What are the risks perceived by health professionals	What are the perceived risks and outrage by general public	Ethics – what is in it for the stakeholders?
Meningococcal sg C disease	Yes: notifiable disease for many years – good detailed and longitudinal evidence	High political risk;	Low	Public frightened- recent high level of awareness amongst public, news coverage biased ++ to worst cases [26]	Much public support for gvt Vaccine provider contracts
Pneumococcal disease	Some: notifiable since 2000 so some local evidence, more from published materials from overseas	Med-low: public not highly aware of significance in children	High	Public not anxious; news highlights occasionally but less general awareness (See * below)	Some public support for gvt Vaccine provider contracts
Varicella	Little – not notifiable	Low – viewed by many people as an insignificant and mild disease of childhood	Med	Very little; whilst parents know this to be an unpleasant disease there is a general lack of awareness of complications, and vaccine not considered a high priority [27]	Vaccine provider contracts

(*Whilst there are several papers about the reasons older people, their families and health care providers use pneumococcal vaccines, there do not seem to be any published peer-reviewed studies of parental understanding of pneumococcal disease). Source [26] [27].