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Parent reminders boost childhood immunizations rates
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Reminding parents about upcoming vaccines their children need or recalling them for overdue vaccines has shown to be among the most effective ways of raising immunization rates, according to new research from the Children’s Outcomes Research Program at Children’s Hospital Colorado.
“If reminder or recall messages can be generated for entire populations within a county by the state and county health departments, this unburdens the primary care practice and is much less expensive overall,” study researcher Allison Kempe, MD, MPH, director of Children’s Outcomes Research at Children’s Hospital Colorado, said in a press release. “It also has the advantage of reaching children who do not have a usual source of primary care. Our data from surveys of both parents and providers suggest that there is strong support for this approach.”
Allison Kempe
Kempe and colleagues compared the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of population-based recall vs. practice-based recall at increasing immunizations among preschool children. The cluster-randomized trial included children aged 19 to 35 months who needed immunizations. The children were from eight rural and six urban Colorado counties.
In the counties participating in population-based recall, they used the Colorado Immunization Information System (CIIS), whereas the counties using practice-based recall attended webinar training using CIIS and offered financial support for mailings.
Six months later, the researchers compared the percentage of children who became up-to-date on vaccines and found significant differences. Among the 32,125 children needing immunizations, 18.7% became up-to-date in population-based recall vs. 12.8% in practice-based recall. Population-based recall was also more cost effective, with $17 per child brought up-to-date vs. $62 per child brought up-to-date in practice-based recall.
“This trial supports consideration of a new paradigm in the way reminder/recall for immunizations should be conducted in this country,” Kempe said. “We think the most successful approach is a truly collaborative one between practices, health departments and the state immunization registry.”
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