DrKatarzyna Bolsewicz

Social science of immunisation

Kasia's current research activities include designing and conducting NSW local and Australian-wide studies with immunisation stakeholders (including healthcare providers, communities, immunisation coordinators and policymakers) to understand reasons behind vaccination acceptance and uptake and to propose relevant strategies to address the underlying barriers.

She is a co-investigator on The National Vaccination Insights project, led by the NCIRS in collaboration with Murdoch Children's Research Institute and the University of Sydney. The aim of the project is to establish the first in Australian routine surveillance of factors influencing vaccine uptake, using mixed method approaches and validated tools, to produce timely data that can be used by the national and local vaccination stakeholders to inform policies to improve vaccination rates.

Before joining NCIRS in 2019, Kasia had been working with four local health districts in New South Wales, Australia, using the World Health Organization's Tailoring Immunization Programmes to identify areas of low childhood vaccine coverage and to gain a greater understanding of factors that influence childhood immunisation. This involved working with local stakeholders (public health units, councils, providers, community members), qualitatively exploring the barriers and facilitators to vaccine uptake and suggestions for improvements that were relevant to the local context. To disseminate key findings and recommendations, Kasia led or co-led several publications, including:

TIP in Umina;

TIP in Kempsey;

TIP in Tamworth;

social analysis of combined TIP findings,

TIPs visual summary of key findings

TIPs summary report NSW Australia

Collaborative participatory approaches

Kasia routinely facilitates consultative processes with the aim to better align research outputs with the perspectives and needs of community members and healthcare providers, designs and facilitates group processes during which immunisation stakeholders share information and workshop solutions (for example the Strategy Mapping Workshop as part of the National Vaccination Insights Study). Kasia values and practices participatory and codesign approaches and has conducted several studies alongside First Nations peoples, including:

Combining First Nations and TIP methods;

promotion and delivery of vaccinations for First Nations peoples

and culturally and linguistically diverse peoples (Factors contributing to the sharing of COVID-19 health information amongst refugee communities in a regional area of Australia)

Program evaluations

Kasia also designs and conducts evaluations of immunisation programs. Recent evaluations include contribution to a 2023 NCIRS report COVID impact on schools, and leading a publication on COVID-19 pandemic impacts on parental attitudes towards routine adolescent vaccinations.

She is a coinvestigator on an evaluation of impacts the HPV immunisation schedule changes on vaccine uptake among adolescents.

Enabling better vaccination conversations

Together with the social science team at NCIRS Kasia conducts literature reviews and primary research with healthcare providers and communities to inform the development of communication resources to support better vaccination conversations. This is because healthcare providers have an important role in building patients' vaccine confidence, yet many providers lack skills and confidence in having supportive vaccination conversations, especially when patients have questions and concerns about vaccinating. This work is part of the Sharing Knowledge About Immunisation (SKAI).

As part of SKAI Kasia co-led with First Nations people the research and development of resources to support vaccination conversations with First Nations families (under 'Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander' tab on For healthcare professionals | Sharing Knowledge About Immunisation | SKAI) and has been involved in expanding SKAI to support vaccination conversations with adults and adolescents.

Research into aging and aged care workforce

Throughout COVID-19 pandemic Kasia has also been working with Hunter New England Population Health in New South Wales, Australia, where she conducted studies with residential aged care facilities across urban and rural locations, to qualitatively explore

the experiences of early COVID-19 restrictions among RACF residents, staff and managers;

experiences of managers in implementing public health measures in RACFs in the post-acute COVID-19 era;

the psychosocial impacts of the pandemic on the aged care workforce.

Kasia has a growing interest in aging research, in particular the psychosocial wellbeing of people as they age in place and in residential aged care facilities.

Additional interests and open to collaborate

Global health

Kasia has an interest in global health context around the topics mentioned above and is open to potential collaborations around: social science of immunisation; social research in residential aged care facilities, aged care workforce; healthy aging; program evaluations; qualitative research methods; teaching and capacity building; participatory approaches.

Kasia has a cross cultural background: she grew up in Poland and spent 10 years in the USA before moving to Australia in 2021. She has worked with and in the Philippines, Zimbabwe, Poland, the USA, and across urban and regional areas of Australia. She speaks several languages including English (equivalent native); Polish (native); French (intermediate) and Italian (basic).