The United States faces a significant vaccination gap for school-age children, especially adolescents, due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), adolescent vaccination rates are down as much as 22%. As of February 14, overall Vaccines for Children (VFC) provider orders (other than flu) are down by almost 11 million doses with MMR/MMRV down by 1.4 million doses. As alarming, HPV vaccinations are down over 1 million doses in the public sector alone.
Family physicians and their care teams have a unique opportunity to take swift and decisive action to bring in school-age children between March and May to catch them up on missed vaccinations and provide well visit services missed during the pandemic.
To help your care team speed up the back-to-school well visit process, The National HPV Vaccination Roundtable has created a comprehensive resource toolkit that includes parent messaging, social media shareables, infographics, and a suite of patient education videos.
The urgency for action is also propelled by an emerging challenge. Should the COVID-19 vaccines be approved for children as young as 12 years old, as anticipated this summer, there is the possibility of a 6-8 week blackout period during the usual back-to-school vaccination season. Why? Current Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance on provision of COVID-19 vaccines to ages 16 and older notes that no other vaccines should be provided two weeks before or after the COVID-19 vaccination series.
Starting early communications now will help ensure that your patients receive the care they need in the timeframe when it is most critical.