Vaccination Calendar Baby-Wrap: Carrying Infants to Vaccines

Anne De Groot of the GAIA Vaccine Foundation in the U.S., along with Mika Kunieda of Keio University in Japan and Eliza Squibb and Julia Shivers of ZTwist Design in Boston, will design and distribute printed fabric baby-wraps that use West African iconography to represent the infant vaccination schedule to new mothers in Niger to encourage vaccine completion and reduce child mortality in West Africa. Due to low literacy rates among women in Niger and lack of adapted vaccination information, there are high dropout rates for pediatric vaccination and 40% of Nigerien children are unprotected from measles. In partnership with the Niger Ministry of Health's Social Mobilisation team, the Vaccine Calendar Baby-Wrap addresses key barriers to vaccination coverage in Niger by leveraging local textile traditions to bridge the information gap between the Ministry of Health's efforts to promote free vaccination and mothers’ understanding of the schedule. This visual tool provides mothers with a personal understanding of the vaccination series while enabling them to become health advocates who can educate their peers. As a practical educational intervention for children's health, the Baby-Wrap serves as a strategy for improving information equity in populations with low literacy.