One More Visit Could Close Demographic Gaps In Infant Vaccination Efforts.(Brief Article)

2001 MAY 9 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) --

Although America has made rapid strides toward achieving goals for infant immunization set by the Healthy People initiative, many African-American and poor infants have been left behind, according to data from the 1999 National Immunization Survey.

Those data also reveal that many infants fall just one doctor's visit short of receiving all of their scheduled vaccines. If these infants had received their final shots, America would have exceeded the goal of 90% immunization in 1999. The actual immunization rate that year was just more than 73%.

Several analyses of the NIS data are published in a supplement to the May 2001 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Overall, 73.2% of American children received a full series of vaccinations, according an analysis of NIS data. That study revealed that 73.5% of the children who had not received a complete vaccination series needed only one more visit to finish out their series of shots, and most needed only one more shot to be fully immunized, says Elizabeth T. Luman and her associates at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

This was reflected in the finding that children who were fully vaccinated averaged six immunization visits, while children who didn't receive all their shots averaged five visits.

Vaccination coverage increased with increasing numbers of visits. In fact, the group of children who had nine visits approached the Healthy People goal, with 89.7% receiving all their shots.