The Power to Protect

PSA from the American Academy of Pediatrics

In honor of National Infant Immunization Week and the recent media coverage on the measles outbreaks, I thought I would write a short post about the POWER OF VACCINES. As someone who believes in protecting our most vulnerable population - children - it seems like a no brainer that parents in the developed world would choose to vaccinate their children. However, as we learn in our health behavior courses, vaccination is a complex behavior. It depends on parents' perceived susceptibility of their child getting the disease, the perceived severity of the disease itself, and the real or perceived costs and benefits of vaccination (our old friend, the Health Belief Model). Oh, and cues to action like this lovely public service announcement!

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), we have reached several significant milestones related to vaccine-preventable diseases:

• Through immunization, we can now protect infants and children from 14 vaccine-preventable disease before age two.
• In the 1950s, nearly every child develop measles, and unfortunately, some even died from this serious disease. Today, few physicians just out of medical school will ever see a case of measles during their careers.*
• Routine childhood immunization in one birth cohort prevents about 20 million cases of disease and about 42,000 deaths. It also saves about $13.5 billion in direct costs.

*However, as many of you have read in the news recently, measles is now worrisome reality in the U.S. Since the new year, measles has infected 129 people in 13 states, the most in the first four months of any year since 1996 (CDC officials). So what's the culprit? I am sure there is a multitude of complex factors leading up to this outbreak, but perhaps a lack of herd immunity (due to low vaccination rates) is part of the problem.

Everything you need to know about vaccines by German Lopez

Herd immunity is "when a critical portion of a community is immunized against a contagious disease, most members of the community are protected against that disease because there is little opportunity for an outbreak. Even those who are not eligible for certain vaccines—such as young infants, pregnant women, or immunocompromised individuals—get some protection because the spread of contagious disease is contained." (vaccines.gov). The infographic on the left is helpful in understanding this concept. 

So how do we protect again future measles outbreaks? Measles can be prevented by just two shots of the combination MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine. There is even a helpful vaccine schedule for parents to help keep them all straight! 

There is a paradox that we learn about in the MPH program that says "when public health works, nothing happens." Universal immunizations for children is one of the Top Ten Public Health Achievements of the 20th Century. It is my sincere hope that the popular press and pervasive myths of the 21st century do not unravel all the hard work that public health has done to protect our most vulnerable populations from communicable diseases.