Vaccination and Immunization

Mark R. Schleiss, MD, discusses the differences between parents who are vaccine hesitant and those that are outright vaccine refusers. One can be reached and the other cannot.

Most humans are not moved by data. So, when John V. Williams, MD, talks with vaccine-hesitant or opposed parents, he’ll often talk about what he has seen as a pediatrician and done as a parent.

To me, it seems that we are trapped traveling around the world within ‘non-connected circles’ that encompass viewpoints adversely affecting significant scientific immunization advances developed to improve the health and well-being of infants, children, adolescents, their families, and all individuals who interact with them.

Contemporary Pediatrics asked pediatric infectious diseases experts how community pediatricians can talk with families who are firmly against vaccinating their children or hesitant to do so. Here’s what they said.

A new study from researchers at Columbia University indicate that the solution to increasing influenza immuinzation rates may be simple.

The later teenaged years are a time of missed opportunities for preventive care and vaccination, according to a new report focused on low rates of meningococcal booster vaccination.

More providers have been recommending human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination to their adolescent male patients in recent years, and the effort seems to be paying off: HPV vaccination coverage among boys aged 13 to 17 years increased from 8.3% in 2011 to 57.3% in 2016, while the proportion of providers who recommended the vaccination to this patient group increased from 14.2% to 65.5%.

Watching a short training video that addresses provider related barriers to vaccination against human papillomavirus (HPV) corrects common misperceptions about HPV and the vaccine, increases providers’ comfort in counseling vaccine-hesitant parents, and facilitates vaccine completion.

Overall vaccination rates in children are good, but there is a small pocket of children who are completely unvaccinated, and this number is rising.

There are constructive ways to carry on difficult conversations with parents about immunization refusal or vaccine hesitancy.

Whereas infants don’t typically receive direct pertussis vaccination until at least age 2 months, a new study suggests that birth doses of the vaccine may be both safe and effective when mothers aren’t able to receive the vaccine themselves and pass antibodies to their babies.

A new report offers the definitive finding of any connection between prenatal Tdap vaccination and autism.

A new study reviewed rates of sexual activity and condom use in states that have passed legislation on HPV vaccine education. Here’s what researchers found regarding the prevalence of risky behaviors.

A new report highlights the fallout from a large-scale measles outbreak in New York City in 2013.

While the ACIP continues to recommend the intranasal flu vaccine for the coming year, AAP is being more cautious in its recommendation due to limited data on last year’s performance.

The number of kindergartners starting school without protection against vaccine-preventable diseases is increasing in states that allow nonmedical exemptions to recommended immunizations.

A new report reveals that hospitalizations for afebrile seizures, as well as for gastroenteritis, have dropped since the introduction of a rotavirus vaccine in 2006.

Provider recommendations are helpful in increasing vaccination rates for human papillomavirus (HPV), but could be utilized more, says a new report.

When you approach a parent who is hesitant about vaccinating her infant at the appropriate well-baby visits, perhaps you say something like this: “Well, we have to do some shots.” Or you might say, “How do you feel about vaccines today?” The former strategy (a “presumptive” approach) is more likely to be effective than the latter (a “participatory” approach), according to a study in parents whom a standardized survey classified as being hesitant about vaccines.

For Contemporary Pediatrics, Dr Bobby Lazzara discusses a Cochrane Review that looks at the effectiveness of the HPV vaccine on preventing cervical cancer.

Not every vaccine is recommended for universal application, but clinicians largely lack understanding about these conditional or permissive recommendations and don’t know how to talk to patients and families about them.

Frequency of care in pediatric populations tends to wane as children reach adolescence, but a new study investigates whether parents would allow clinicians to reach out to their children by text message to offer important reminders.

College students with a history of waived vaccinations often refuse to receive updated immunizations, according to a new report.

A third dose of the mumps vaccine for everyone-not just those in outbreak areas-may help combat a resurgence of the virus, according to a new report.

A popular claim in the antivaccination movement that too many vaccines can set children up for poor immunity overall has been refuted in a new study.

A change in the H1N1 component may have solved efficacy problems from prior formulations of the intranasal vaccine.

For Contemporary Pediatrics, Dr Bobby Lazzara discusses a case control study published in Pediatrics that looked at whether associations existed between mother receiving influenza and/or Tetanus, diphtheria, and acellular pertussis vaccinations during pregnancy and infant hospitalization or death occurring in the first 6 months of life.