New opportunity for vaccinating older people: Well-child clinic visits Pediatrics International, 04/27/2012

Arslan I et al. – Reminding elderly grandparents about vaccines in well–child clinics could be an opportunity in this field.

• The authors designed a prospective interventional study to determine whether recommendations to vaccinate grandparents of children attending well-child clinics would increase the pneumococcal vaccination rate in the elderly.
• Children younger than 5 years of age, attending a university well-child clinic from 1 May to 31 September 2008 who had grandparents over 65 years of age were eligible.
• A survey including the questions about the demographic characteristics of children, their parents and grandparents over 65 was carried out by face-to-face interview with the parents.
• High-risk medical conditions and vaccination history of grandparents was also noted and the benefits and necessity of pneumococcal vaccination (23vPPV) for the elderly was emphasized.

• Information was obtained from 938 grandparents of 545 children. Before the interview, among all grandparents, only 0.9% were vaccinated with 23vPPV.
• Four months after this intervention, immunization coverage increased to 19.1%.
• The sex of the grandchild (OR: 1.99) and previous hepatitis B or influenza immunization of the grandparents (OR: 2.73) were the significant parameters accounting for higher immunization rates.