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Championing School-Located Influenza Immunization: The School Nurse’s RoleChristina Li, MPH, is a medical writer and editor with expertise in the areas of vaccines, infectious disease, and health promotion/disease prevention.
Marian Freedman, MA, is a medical writer and editor. A former senior editor of Contemporary Pediatrics, she is now a contributing editor to that journal as well as to Contemporary Ob/Gyn.
Lynda Boyer-Chu, MPH, RN, is a mentor school district nurse/wellness center nurse for the San Francisco Unified School District.
According to the 2008 recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, influenza vaccine should be administered on an annual basis to all children aged 6 months through 18 years. School-age children are more likely than any other age group to be infected with influenza, and young children are at high risk for hospitalization resulting from influenza-related complications. Given children’s pivotal role in transmission of influenza to their schoolmates, household contacts, and members of their communities, it has been suggested that routinely vaccinating children against the disease might reduce the burden of disease in the US population as a whole. School-located vaccination clinics could go a long way toward improving the rates of pediatric influenza immunization and enhancing the pandemic preparedness of communities. School nurses are urged to consider ways in which they can help advocate for, plan, and/or implement school-located influenza vaccination clinics.
Key Words: influenza immunization • school-located vaccination clinics • vaccination coverage rates • trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine • live, attenuated influenza vaccine
The Journal of School Nursing, Vol. 25, No. 1 Suppl,
18S-28S (2009) |
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