REACHING TEENS:VACCINATIONS IN COMPLEMENTARY HEALTH CARE SETTINGS

University Of Rochester, Rochester NY

Investigators

Abstract

[unreadable] DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Several new vaccines have recently been licensed or are being developed for use in adolescents. Many of these vaccines are for conditions that are sexually-transmitted and some of them require multiple injections. Vaccines to prevent sexually-transmitted infections should optimally be administered before sexual debut. Since adolescents are generally a group that does not regularly obtain preventive health care services in the traditional medical home, but instead tends to segment their medical care, ways are needed to develop partnerships between the medical home and complementary health care settings so that the complementary settings may augment the adolescent vaccination efforts of providers in the medical home to vaccinate adolescents in a timely manner. This project will assess patient and provider willingness to receive and provide vaccinations in complementary health care settings and will focus on issues related to familiarity with vaccine preventable conditions and the availability of vaccines, feasibility of vaccine administration in various settings, cost, parental notification, parental consent. The project will take the form of analysis of national public use datasets; interviews with individual adolescents and their parents; national surveys of adolescents, the parents of adolescents, and providers who work in emergency departments, teen clinics and pharmacies; site visits to an emergency department, teen clinics and pharmacies; focus groups with national opinion leaders in the realms of emergency medicine, teen clinic operation and pharmacies to develop consensus best-practices for adolescent vaccination in the selected complementary health care settings; and collaboration with professional organizations and immunization advocacy groups to disseminate those best practices. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]