Associate Professor Katie Attwell has supported Australian state and federal governments with vaccine communications, developing interventions for vaccine confidence, and policies for routine and COVID-19 vaccinations, as well as researching vaccination policymaking in the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, France, Bangladesh, and Malaysia. Her technical expertise lies in vaccination social science and vaccination policy. She focuses on ways to share this expertise with global policymakers, to support the growth of vaccination social science, to build the capacity of vaccination social science researchers, and to assist countries in responding to challenges to their immunisation programs or the rollout of new vaccines.

Katie is the present Chair of the Collaboration on Social Science and Immunisation (COSSI), an organisation of which she was a founding member in 2016. COSSI links researchers with end users in government and the not-for-profit sector, providing opportunities for collaboration, cross-pollination, and efficiency. She is well versed in the global literature on vaccination social science pertaining to vaccine hesitancy and refusal, systemic access barriers and service design challenges, and interventions to enhance uptake. As a policy scholar, she is also well-versed in the ways in which policy change occurs, the inputs and actors involved, policy and program evaluation, etc. She is also an expert in comparative methods, which is particularly useful in helping with the translation of best practice from one context to another. 

Associate Professor Katie Attwell is a political science and public policy scholar at the University of Western Australia, where she leads the interdisciplinary VaxPolLab and supports a range of senior and junior scholars in vaccination social and political research. She is also an Honorary Fellow of the Wesfarmers Centre of Vaccines and Infectious Diseases at Telethon Kids Institute. A/Prof Attwell currently holds a four year research fellowship funded by the Medical Research Future Fund of Australia (MRFF) and the University of Western Australia. She is a former Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) Fellow. A/Prof Attwell has engaged in community, systems and behavioural research in the area of vaccination uptake since 2014. Her DECRA (2019-2022) explored mandatory childhood vaccination policies in Australia, Italy, France, and California. Katie led the interdisciplinary West Australian project “Coronavax: Preparing Community and Government”, which engaged in community and government research for the COVID-19 vaccine roll-out, funded by Wesfarmers and the Health Department of Western Australia. Katie presently leads MandEval, a mixed methods and multi-country study of the implementation and impact of COVID-19 vaccine mandates, funded by the MRFF.

Medical Research Future Fund

• MandEval: Effectiveness and Consequences of Australia's COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates - $4.57 million

Australian Research Council 

• Advancing Solutions for Addressing Vaccine Rejection: The Drivers and Impact of Mandatory Vaccination. ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award DE190100158 2019-2022 - $405,751. 

National Health and Medical Research Council

• Developing evidence based strategies for addressing childhood vaccination rejection. Associate Investigator: “an investigator who provides intellectual input into the research and whose participation warrants inclusion of their name on publications” (NHMRC). 2017-2022 – $743,927

WA Government Future Health Research and Innovation Fund

• Coronavax 3: Reaching the Vulnerable 2021 $225,000.
• Coronavax 3: Reaching the Vulnerable 2021-2023 $249,990. 

WA Health

• Coronavax 2: Preparing Community and Government 2020-2022 - $187,673 

Westfarmers Centre of Vaccines and Infectious Diseases, Telethon Kids Institute 

• Coronavax: Preparing Community and Government. 2020 - $99,946
• Parental Immunisation Needs and Attitudes – Antenatal (PINA-A). 2015 – $15,000
• Midwives’ Attitudes and Communications regarding Immunisation. 2014 – $15,000

Worldwide Universities Network 

• Norms, standards, and enforcement of the COVID-19 International Certificate of Vaccination. 2020 – £10,000.00
• Communicating Good Health and Wellbeing: Promotion, Advocacy and Resilience. 2018 – $33,306

Flinders University 

• Understanding parental (mis)trust in vaccines for children: a qualitative study 2017 – $19,000

Graduate Women WA

• Joyce Riley Research Top-Up Bursary. 2008 – $3,000