Working Together to Achieve AIRE Success

Announcements

29 March 2019

Public Health Ontario launched the Applied Immunization Research and Evaluation (AIRE) initiative in 2015 to build research infrastructure and networks for AIRE-related projects across PHO. 
In just three years, the initiative has made great strides to strengthen PHO’s science, people and ultimately, the public health system in Ontario.

The secret to this success? Collaboration.

AIRE projects foster internal collaboration and link PHO with key external partners, including the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES), Canadian universities and the Canadian Immunization Research Network (CIRN). AIRE researchers have worked with external partners in more than 96 institutions based in 9 countries.

Here’s a look at some of AIRE’s biggest wins:

  • PHO staff are members of the National Advisory Committee on Immunization and its working groups, the Canadian Immunization Committee (CIC) and the Canadian Immunization Registry and Coverage Network (CIRC). We are also members of a number of World Health Organization (WHO) committees.
  • In June 2017, the first immunization school coverage report using data from Ontario’s new digital health immunization repository was released. These reports help support policy and program priorities at the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, as well as program planning and evaluation efforts at local public health units. 
  • PHO staff released over 50 AIRE-related publications between 2015 and 2017. 
  • AIRE studies with PHO principal investigators were awarded $2.9 million for research. Funders included the Canadian Immunization Research Network, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Public Health Agency of Canada.
  • PHO staff have given AIRE-related presentations and keynote addresses at a range of major conferences, including the Canadian Immunization Conference, the American Society for Microbiology Meeting and the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases.  
  • The media referenced the research or expertise of PHO’s AIRE subject matter experts in over 4,000 published or broadcast news items. These included issues dealing with influenza infection and immunization research, outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases and the importance of immunization to protect against illness, vaccine hesitancy and vaccine safety.

AIRE is a young and growing initiative that is bringing people together from across PHO, Ontario, Canada and the world around a common theme. It helps support the efforts of PHO’s expert scientific and technical, research and operational staff to make a difference to the future health of Ontarians. 

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Communications

communications@oahpp.ca

Updated 29 March 2019