Planning and Management of Vaccine Distribution: Social Vulnerability Index to Reduce Vulnerability in Public Health

The COVID-19 pandemic has faced up health systems around the world with the challenge of organizing supplies and effectively distributing vaccines to citizens. Clear planning of need and constant tracking of actual values are necessary to achieve sustainable collective immunity and high rates of healthcare innovation. This chapter describes these processes using medical and demographic forecasting methods. The aim of the study is to develop a model for vaccine planning and distribution, the use of which will reduce the imbalance in vaccine doses supplied to the regions. The paper analyzes the current state of approaches to vaccine supply management in the world and IT solutions used to support this process; it develops a hierarchical model of vaccine distribution management for supply to the regions and describes the way to increase the accuracy of medical and demographic forecasting. The paper presents the results of a study conducted in open cooperation with healthcare organizations and regional healthcare authorities of Saint Petersburg, Russia. The results are published to openly disseminate new knowledge and enable its transformation and subsequent practical application to improve innovation penetration in such a socially and economically crucial segment as vaccination. The proposed approach is intended to serve to improve the reliability of national and regional systems for managing the distribution of vaccines through a planning system based on the needs of the population, taking into account the vulnerability factor.