Peer-reviewed article
The influence of gender on immunisation: using an ecological framework to examine intersecting inequities and pathways to change
Marta Feletto, Alyssa Sharkey ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This paper examines how gender affects child immunisation outcomes, using an ecological framework that considers individual, household, community and system-level factors. The authors argue there is insufficient understanding of how gender mediates immunisation, and propose using an intersectional approach to identify the mechanisms behind gender inequities in vaccination. The framework is intended to help identify appropriate interventions and change agents that address the structural causes of unequal vaccination coverage across different population groups.
Key points
- Gender substantially mediates child immunisation outcomes, but this relationship remains understudied
- Gender inequities in immunisation are grounded in interplay between individual, household, community and system-level factors
- An ecological model can help identify the mechanisms causing gender-based disparities in vaccination coverage
- Implementation of interventions to address gender inequities requires multisectoral perspectives
- Interventions must target underlying causes of marginalisation to ensure relevance to specific populations
Limitations
This appears to be a conceptual or review paper that presents a framework rather than evaluating a specific intervention. It does not provide empirical evidence on which interventions actually work to reduce gender inequities in immunisation.
Abstract
There is still a substantial knowledge gap on how gender mediates child health in general, and child immunisation outcomes in particular. Similarly, implementation of interventions to mitigate gender inequities that hinder children from being vaccinated requires additional perspectives and research. We adopt an intersectional approach to gender and delve into the social ecology of implementation, to show how gender inequities and their connection with immunisation are grounded in the interplay between individual, household, community and system factors. We show how an ecological model can be used as an overarching framework to support more precise identification of the mechanisms causing gender inequity and their structural complexity, to identify suitable change agents and interventions that target the underlying causes of marginalisation, and to ensure outcomes are relevant within specific population groups.