Vaxcards: A statewide trial on the effectiveness of a collectible card game on the education and uptake of vaccination

INTERVENTION: The school children will already be undertaking the vaccination program as part of their year 7 program at their school and consent for vaccination is done separately by the Department of Health and Human Services. For this study, we will offer parents the chance to return the vaxcards game intervention if they do not wish for their children to participate. De‐identified, routinely collected information about returned consent forms will be provided to the investigators by Casey Council for the schools involved in the trial. All students in the normal vaccination program are provided the consent form for community vaccination by the council for content to vaccinate. The experimental group will also be provided a 1 page handout about receiving a game of vaxcards when their consent form is returned. In term 1 the students who return their consent form will be provided a pack of the vaccination card game Vaxcards. The return rate of consent forms will form the primary outcome measure. There will be slight variations in the timing of the intervention among sub groups in the experimental group. 1. receiving the starter pack of vaxcards at the time of the council consent form, school posters, teachers provided lesson plans, HPV card at time of vaccination. ‐starter pack contains: instructions on how to play the game, names and characters of 11 diseases (hepatitis B, measles, meningococcal, pneumococcal, rotavirus, rubella, mumps, varicella, dipthteria, pertussis, tetanus and HPV). Cards contain information on the disease symptoms, vector, method of infection eg droplet/blood, incidence. worldwide mortality. 2. receiving the starter pack of vaxcards at the time of the council consent form, school posters, teachers provided lesson plans, HPV card at time CONDITION: Infection ‐ Other infectious diseases Public Health ‐ Health promotion/education vaccination education;vaccine uptake; ; vaccination education ; vaccine uptake PRIMARY OUTCOME: Return rate of 'yes' consent form for vaccination of the groups, routinely collected by the councils for both the intervention and control groups.; This data will be collected from the councils by data sharing summary totals at the school level, as they are routinely recorded and provided to the health department. [timepoint 0 will be the vaccination program data from 2019 for each school.; (2020 vaccination data will not be used as timepoint 0 baseline due to the interruption of schools programs from COVID19); end of council vaccination program for 2021 to the participating schools will form timepoint 1. ; ] SECONDARY OUTCOME: quantitative survey composite data of parental knowledge, attitudes and behaviors towards vaccination. Survey used will be the validated Vaccine Confidence Index(tm) [2 weeks after vaccination in the council school vaccination program for 2021] INCLUSION CRITERIA: State of Victoria school vaccination program for year 7 students and parents of students.