August is National Immunization Awareness Month! This annual observance highlights the importance of vaccinations for people of all ages. As families prepare to send children back to school, it’s a timely opportunity to check in about the health-related items that should be on their to-do list – especially vaccinations! 

Recent CDC reports document challenges related to COVID-19 and routine vaccination for children. Health centers are positioned to make significant progress to get children vaccinated. For example, reminding patients that co-administration of the COVID-19 vaccine with other routine vaccines is safe.

Boosting COVID-19 Vaccination Rates among Adolescents

Cherry Health in Grand Rapids, MI, shared their success at getting adolescents vaccinated against COVID-19.

Check out the Vaccines section of our Health Center Stories webpage for their story and others that may inspire your health center!

Esperanza Health Centers (Chicago, IL), who is also featured on the page, will share their success in getting kids vaccinated at an upcoming, pre-recorded COVID-19 Response Program Office Hours. We’ll share the recording in a future Digest issue.  

Resources

We’ll feature additional resources in our Primary Health Care Digest throughout the month.

National Immunization Awareness Month

CDC resources can assist you in communicating about vaccinations this month and beyond.

COVID-19 Vaccination

• Clinical resources
  • CDC’s COVID-19 Vaccination for Children website
  • Recording of NACHC’s recent webinar: We Can Do This: Educating Nurses and Pediatric Staff about New COVID-19 Vaccines for Children
• Promotion/Patient education materials in multiple languages
  • HHS’ We Can Do This website
  • The CDC-funded National Resource Center for Refugees, Immigrants and Migrants creates COVID-19 communications materials in 40+ languages. Messages are both linguistically and culturally appropriate. Drag-and-drop templates make their materials easy to customize fact sheets, conversation guides, and more.
  • CDC’s FAQs about COVID-19 Vaccination for Children and Teens

Routine Childhood Vaccination

Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) Recommended Immunization Schedule for Children and Adolescents Aged 18 Years or Younger — United States, 2022

We’ll share ACIP’s recommendations for flu vaccination in the Digest once they are published!