Reducing Missed Opportunities to Vaccinate During Child Health Visits

Abstract

Background: At child health visits, immunizations that are due are frequently not given. Increased parent understanding of and demand for immunizations may influence providers to not miss these opportunities. Objective: To assess, as part of a larger study of effectiveness of parent education and case management (CM) in raising immunization rates, the intervention's effectiveness at reducing missed opportunities to vaccinate during child health visits. Methods: A representative sample of African American newborns and their families from south central Los Angeles, Calif, were randomly assigned to a control or a CM group and observed during the first year of life. Case managers visited and telephoned parents, educating them on the benefits and safety of immunizations, and encouraging them to request immunizations from providers. When the children were at least 1 year of age, parents were interviewed and provider records were abstracted. Results: Complete records were abstracted for 126 con-Editor's Note: So much for the effectiveness of case management-at least as it relates to immunization. Any other ideas?

Missed opportunities for vaccination among children aged 0–23 months visiting health facilities in a southwest State of Nigeria, December 2019

“…With regards to dose-based MOV, our assessment found a higher prevalence of MOV among vaccines given to older children, particularly MenA and second dose of measles vaccines. This finding is consistent with other assessments which have also found an increase in MOV with age [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. This can be an indication of a need to strengthen the second year of life platform (2YL), which can often be weak due to complacency and the reduced perception of the importance of vaccination beyond the first year of life [11,18].…”

An observational, health service based survey for missed opportunities for immunization

“…Previous studies have implicated provider misconceptions like avoiding immunization during minor illness as a significant predictor for MOI [6]. Though illness characteristic was not significantly predictive of MOI in this study, the likelihood of MOI was higher with visits to non-Pediatric/non-Medical college based practice including General Practitioners.…”

Face-to-face interventions for informing or educating parents about early childhood vaccination

“…However, in two studies that assessed multi‐component interventions, the effect of the face‐to‐face intervention on changes to vaccination status could not be isolated from the effects of other components of the intervention. Therefore, we could not report on this outcome for these studies (Quinlivan 2003; Wood 1998). …”