AIM Announces 2026 Bull's-Eye Award Winners for Immunization Excellence

The Association of Immunization Managers (AIM) has announced the winners of the 2026 Bull's-Eye Award for Innovation and Excellence in Immunization. The award recognizes outstanding initiatives in immunization programs across the United States. This year, three programs were honored for their innovative approaches to improving vaccination coverage and public health outcomes.

This initiative designed a single, integrated visit that fulfilled IQIP core requirements. The integration had three primary objectives: developing the Connecticut Birth Hospital Annual Immunization Report with visualizations and supporting documentation, updating and modifying the Annual Birth Hospital Questionnaire to meet requirements, and expanding to capture information that would be useful to the Connecticut Department of Public Health. This resource is intended to facilitate integrated birth hospital IQIP visits.

In Mississippi, the Department of Health's Immunizations Program launched "The First Breath Initiative." This initiative aimed to reduce perinatal risk through clinical intervention and education. The program focused on improving the identification of births to hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg+) women in the state and ensuring that their infants receive appropriate treatment for exposure to hepatitis B virus (HBV). Given Mississippi's ranking 50th in the U.S. for infant mortality rates at 9.65/1,000, this initiative aligns with the state's goal of constructing a unique system of care for high-risk pregnant women and their babies to improve infant mortality rates.

Rhode Island's Department of Health Office of Immunization also received recognition for its initiative. Using geospatial analysis, the program identified areas with lower MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccination coverage. By mapping vaccination data at the community, municipality, or other appropriate geographic level, the program could pinpoint areas with lower coverage, detect geographic clusters or "hot spots" of under-vaccination, and examine relationships between vaccination coverage and factors such as socioeconomic conditions, health care access, and population characteristics. These analyses help distinguish whether lower coverage reflects isolated practices, broader community-level barriers, or geographic patterns that warrant targeted intervention.

AIM Executive Director Claire Hannan expressed pride in the work accomplished by the Connecticut, Mississippi, and Rhode Island immunization programs.

Since 1999, AIM has enabled collaboration among immunization managers to effectively control vaccine-preventable diseases and improve immunization coverage in the United States. The organization is dedicated to working with its partners nationwide to reduce, eliminate, or eradicate vaccine-preventable diseases.