Grant: Catalyst Grant: Partnering for Impact - IPPH - Global Health

Millions of children around the world-about one in six-still miss out on life-saving vaccines. Most live in poor or remote communities where families face multiple challenges: limited access to health services, unsafe water, poor nutrition, and social exclusion. To reach these "zero-dose" children, health systems must work together with other sectors such as education, nutrition, and water and sanitation. This project, led by Dr Mira Johri at the Université de Montréal and Dr Ibrahim Dadari at UNICEF Headquarters, will help countries find better ways to plan and test such multisectoral strategies. Working with UNICEF and other partners in India and the Philippines, the team will review existing evidence, listen to communities, and co-develop practical research plans that countries can use to secure funding and ethics approval for future studies. The project also explores how researchers, policy-makers, and community organisations can work together fairly and effectively. Using the Research Quality Plus for Co-Production framework, the team will identify good practices for inclusive, respectful collaboration and embed these lessons into new research plans. Results will include state-of-the-art evidence syntheses, accessible summaries for communities, policy briefs for governments and UNICEF, and ready-to-use research protocols for countries. The project will also strengthen Canada's leadership in global health equity by providing tools that tackle complex social and upstream health determinants, link research to action, and amplify community voices. In the longer term, this work will help ensure that every child-no matter where they live-has the chance to be protected by vaccines and to grow up healthy, educated, and free from intergenerational poverty.