School, child care and camp exclusion policies for chickenpox: A rational approach

Abstract

All Canadian Paediatric Society position statements and practice points are reviewed regularly and revised as needed. Consult the Position Statements section of the CPS website www.cps.ca/en/documents for the most current version. Retired statements are removed from the website.

Barriers impacting organizational immunization policy implementation in U.S. and Canadian summer camps

“…Our study findings indicate that factors impacting immunization policy compliance in camps include stakeholder and administrator opposition, inability to obtain accurate and complete documentation, medical exemptions, increasing globalization within the camp community, financial and mission outcome protection, lack of policies and policy awareness. These themes are consistent with findings from prior studies, for example, the salience of parental opposition to vaccination (Dubé et al, 2016;McNeil et al, 2019), concerns associated with exclusion policies and their impact on the camp population (Bridger, 2018), and lack of immunization policies among camp providers. Further, these findings suggest the need for multi-dimensional decision-making frameworks to inform vaccine policy implementation (see Perman et al [2017]; Skea, Entwistle, Watt, & Russell [2008]).…”

“…While these administrator views may be better for the organization's financial stability and support camps' mission to contribute to the positive development of youth, a failure to ensure that all members of the camp community are properly vaccinated may sacrifice public health. This finding highlights calls for camps to regularly review their immunization policies (Bridger, 2018) and educate employees about the policies (Yoder, 2015).…”

“…However, little research exists on how immunization practice guidelines are being applied within non-formal pediatric settings such as summer camps and the barriers to policy implementation within those settings (Schaffzin et al, 2007). Furthermore, while all states require students to receive specific vaccinations, child immunization exemptions due to child medical conditions and family religious beliefs may influence the effectiveness of organizational immunization practices (Bridger, 2018), particularly when vaccination gaps exist within the population of youth being served (National Conference of State Legislatures, 2020). Such gaps are exacerbated by public and parental resistance to vaccinations (i.e., see Dubé et al [2016]; McNeil et al [2019] discussion of vaccine hesitancy), and public health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, which has resulted in decreased rates of childhood immunizations (Santoli et al, 2020).…”