Child immunization

The Importance of Child and Teen Immunization Amid COVID-19

The return to school each year often serves as a reminder for parents to review their children’s immunization records. While the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic means that the start of this school year will look different for many, it does not lessen the importance of children getting vaccinated. Learn how the pandemic has impacted child vaccination and how providers can help boost immunizations this fall.

Early Childhood Vaccines: The Foundation for Lifelong Disease Prevention

The first 15 months of a child’s life are an important time within the vaccination schedule as an opportunity to establish initial protection against diseases like polio and hepatitis B. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that children be vaccinated against 14 illnesses during the first two years of their life. Pediatricians and family physicians can play a major role in an infant’s immunity by engaging parents in ongoing discussions about what vaccines their child needs and when.

School’s Out: Use Summer Vacation to Bolster Child Immunization

Many parents schedule their children’s well-child visit, or “check-up,” during the summer months to prepare for the start of a new school year. Well-child visits are a great opportunity for providers to help parents ensure their child’s vaccinations are up to date, and to keep young patients healthy and free from vaccine-preventable illnesses.

Playing Vaccine Catch-Up This Summer

Summer vacation often gives students of all ages a break from homework and classes. But, for healthcare professionals, summer appointments present an opportunity to educate young patients and parents about their recommended vaccine schedule. Providers can help patients catch up on their vaccines before they return to school to fulfill state-mandated immunization requirements and to protect patients and their fellow students from vaccine-preventable diseases.

How to Keep Patients From “Catching” Pneumonia

“You’re going to catch pneumonia.” We’ve all heard the phrase – and maybe even had it directed at us. But, providers know it is not that easy to “catch” pneumonia. In reality, people catch the bacteria, viruses or fungi that can eventually cause pneumonia. With this often-misunderstood illness, providers have an opportunity to educate patients about the severity of pneumonia and help them determine the immunization recommendations that are right for them.  

Calling For Support: Recommend the HPV Vaccine

It’s been nearly 10 years since the CDC first recommended immunization against human papillomavirus (HPV), the disease known to cause many types of gynecological and reproductive cancers. During that time, numerous studies have supported the vaccine’s efficiency. Yet through a decade of endorsements and advancements, the HPV vaccine continues to fall below target rates.

Debunking the Myths & Misconceptions of Vaccine Safety

Being a new parent is hard enough without the multitude of conflicting information on caring for a baby around sleeping, feeding, bathing and nurturing, to name a few. Yet, one of the most debated topics among parents centers on children's immunizations. And it’s one of the few issues where science clearly supports only one side: pro-vaccines.

Ending the Whooping Cough News Cycle

The bacterial infection, pertussis, kept largely under control in recent decades by vaccination is again making headlines. Pertussis, known commonly as whooping cough, is on the rise. From 2013 to 2014, total cases reported increased 15 percent, and almost daily new outbreaks are reported in the news here in the United States and abroad. 

No Vaccine, No Patient Care

In recent years, the anti-vaccine movement has increased in the United States. Despite the medical community’s overwhelming pro-vaccine stance, a small, but vocal group of parents have used sensational stories, questionable studies, and fervent beliefs to convince themselves and others from vaccinating their children. As a result, physicians today are often faced with a difficult decision: Do they continue to care for unvaccinated patients, and put other patients at risk, or do they choose to dismiss these patients?

Expanding Coverage: A New Approach to Meningitis Prevention

As a parent, sending a child off to college or into the working world is scary enough. The last thing they want to imagine is a potentially life-threatening disease. Unfortunately, they should. On college campuses across the U.S., outbreaks of meningococcal disease (meningitis), a serious bacterial infection of the brain and spinal cord, have occurred.