Announcing IVAC

Dear Colleagues,

I am excited to tell you that today, Monday, December 7th we are announcing the launch of a new International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC) at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. We are pleased to have the opportunity to bring together a group with diverse skills and perspectives to accelerate access to lifesaving vaccines in populations that need them most through the development and implementation of evidence-based policies.

The emphasis on evidence to drive policies and evidence-driven communications to build support for implementation is based on our experience with pneumococcal, Hib and other vaccines. Our approach will involve supporting the progression of vaccines along a continuum from evidence to policy to implementation and access. In the process of achieving access we will aim to build solid evidence by strategically finding gaps in knowledge that impede policy decisions. We've also learned that having an evidence-based policy is not enough to assure access so we will build coalitions of individuals and institutions who can assure that evidence-based policies get the political will and priority for implementation that they require.

As IVAC, we will build on the strengths of the research, communications and access and implementation teams from the PneumoADIP and combine those with resources across the departments of the Bloomberg School of Public Health to solve complex problems in building evidence, policy and access to vaccines worldwide.

We hope that you will join us in our efforts to further access for the world's poor populations and look forward to future collaborations together.

I invite you to visit our new webpage for information on the projects being conducted within IVAC. Please check back in the coming months as we build out the Center's site to update you on projects and findings.

Sincerely,

Orin S. Levine, PhD
Executive Director, IVAC
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
www.jhsph.edu/ivac
Follow me on Twitter @orinlevine
Read my blog at www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-orin-levine