Adolescent Vaccination Reminder Study

Adolescents are a reservoir population for a variety of vaccine preventable diseases (VPDs). Despite this, adolescent vaccination rates lag substantially behind national goals of 80% coverage for adolescent vaccines set forth by Healthy People 2020. This has been particularly the case for the vaccines most recently recommended for adolescents, such as the HPV (human papilloma virus) and seasonal influenza (flu) vaccines; national coverage levels in 2010 for HPV were 32% (for series completion among females only) and 35% for flu vaccine. Uptake levels for the two other adolescent-targeted vaccines, Tdap and meningococcal conjugate (MCV4) vaccines are currently at 69% and 63%, respectively. A major barrier to increased adolescent vaccination levels is the lack of parental and provider recognition that an adolescent is due for vaccine doses. For providers, there are the dual challenges of getting adolescents to come in for annual preventive care visits and also minimizing "missed opportunities" for vaccination (i.e. clinical interactions with a patient where a needed vaccine could have been provided but was not). Reminder/recall systems are one mechanism to help address both of these challenges for providers while also informing parents about the need for adolescent vaccines.