Nationwide child vaccine SMS nudge to start in 2027

An automated SMS reminder system to help keep children’s vaccinations on track is due to launch nationwide mid next year, the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing (DoHDA) has confirmed.
 
It gave fresh detail of the reminders, which were first flagged in the 2026–27 Federal Budget, saying they are due to be in place in mid-2027, and will be directed towards parents and carers of children aged less than five when their vaccinations are due under the National Immunisation Program (NIP).
 
‘These SMS reminders will support parents and carers to keep children up to date with vaccinations and help reduce missed or delayed vaccinations,’ a DoHDA spokesperson told newsGP.
 
They said the messages will be sent from the Australian Immunisation Register (AIR), which is managed by Services Australia, and ‘will complement existing hardcopy reminder letters’.
 
The decision to use the AIR comes despite the results of a randomised controlled trial run by The Kids Research Institute Australia, which showed a successful rise in on-time vaccinations when reminders were sent through general practices.
 
Known as the AuTOMATIC trial, the initiative generated more than 20,000 text messages from 2021–24 through 20 general practices around the country using the SmartVax program.
 
It improved on-time uptake by an estimated 6% compared to sending no reminder at all, according to the trial results, which were published in Lancet Regional Health earlier this year.
 
Professor Tom Snelling, who is Head of Infectious Disease Implementation at the Wesfarmers Centre of Vaccines and Infectious Diseases at The Kids Research Institute and was involved in the study, said he welcomed the Federal Government’s funding of the SMS reminder system.
 
‘They’re relatively low cost in the scheme of things and at least for some parents SMS reminders can be helpful in making sure that their kids get vaccinated on time,’ he told newsGP.
 
Professor Snelling said involving GP clinics ‘played an important role in the successful outcome’ of the trial he was involved with, noting a very high acceptance rate of the messages with only one parent asking not to receive further reminders.
 
‘We thought it would be important because in work that’s been done before now, parents have repeatedly said that GPs are their most trusted source of information about vaccination,’ he said.
 
‘We anticipated that [the messages] would be most effective if they came from the GP.
 
‘That’s what we evaluated, and we did show they were effective.’
 
The study did not compare the difference between messages coming from a GP and other sources, nor did it look at whether the intervention had any effect on overall vaccine uptake.
 
Professor Snelling emphasises the importance of tracking the impact of the Government’s planned intervention.
 
‘If [the SMS messages] are not going to come from the GP, it’s going to be important to evaluate their effectiveness coming from Government – we need to see that those messages work as well as they did when they came from the GP,’ he said.
 
Earlier this month, a report published by the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance warned of ‘concerning and ongoing declines in childhood and adolescent vaccination coverage’.
 
Basing its analysis on AIR data, it also found on-time childhood vaccination is still ‘substantially lower’ compared to before the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
It said vaccines due at older ages are more likely to be received late, with two in five children having the first dose of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine late, and one in five missing the due date of their second dose of a diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis-containing vaccine.
 
Professor Snelling said the study he was involved in showed a particular improvement for later doses.
 
‘Some of the earlier vaccine doses, we’re pretty good at getting those doses in on time, so we weren’t able to prove an improvement, but for some of the later ones, the improvement was up to 10 percentage points,’ he said.
 
The study concluded the reminders created a ‘modest but meaningful’ improvement on timeliness, which Professor Snelling said could still make a substantial difference.
 
‘Just improving the timeliness of coverage against things like measles could actually have a disproportionate impact on how much measles we see, because a modest improvement in timely coverage could make it that much more difficult for the virus to spread in the community,’ he said.
 
The framing of the Government’s SMS reminders is yet to be confirmed, although the Kids Research Institute found ‘evidence that persuasive reminders may be more effective than neutral reminders’.
 
The DoHDA spokesperson said its initiative is not directly related to the Kids Research Institute’s work but that findings from that project and others may inform the design.
 
They also said they will release more information publicly ‘once implementation arrangements are finalised’.
 
As the plan progresses, the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation received an update on the rollout at its 10 June meeting, confirming DoHDA is working with Services Australia on the implementation.
 
The Kids Research Institute suggests 35,000 additional children could receive 18-month and four-year-old vaccines on time if a similar system to their trial were to run nationwide.
 
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