County stressing immunization

As fall approaches, health departments across the state are looking at ways to boost the immunization rates of their population in the hopes of preventing a major epidemic. The Summit County Health Department is taking steps to educate the public on just how important getting immunized is.

“Utah historically has had very low rates of immunization, particularly among children,” said Summit County Health Dept. Director Richard Bullough. “Local health departments, in coordination with state departments, are looking together to find systems-based, effective ways to improve rates.”

A concerning trend in the county is the increase in the amount of individuals requesting vaccination exemptions for their children, said Bullough. The Health Dept. is the entity responsible for issuing those exemptions, but it also must have a certain proportion of the population vaccinated in order to protect the entire population from outbreaks.

“We’re not to the point where we’re not having a large enough proportion vaccinated, but we are creeping upwards,” Bullough said.

Summit County Health Dept. Nursing Director Carolyn Rose says that exemption rates have been going up two percent a year since 2007.

“For a health department looking at that, our concern is disease outbreak,” Rose said. “With exemption rates going up, without kids getting immunized, the rates of disease will go up.”

The county will be seeking to implement a $15 fee for those wishing to have immunization exemptions, and Bullough defends the move by saying it is a way for the department to recoup some the costs that exemptions can bring about.

“When there’s an outbreak in a school, we are responsible for investigations and for putting in place protective measures to protect students from outbreak,” Bullough said. “We’re looking at the fee as a way to cover our expenses for investigations for non-vaccinated kids there’s a significant expense for that.”

Bullough says the true cost of covering exemptions is “hundreds of dollars” and Rose notes that 10 out the other 12 health districts in the state have instituted exemption fees. She also pointed to the vast amount of money spent by Salt Lake County in 2011 in fighting a measles outbreak as an example.

Immunization statistics can be dubious for a health department, Bullough says, since the numbers may not always be accurate. Because of the wide variety of places people can get vaccinated (community health centers, physicians’ offices, grocery stores, etc.), immunization rates can be inaccurate.

“Some evidence suggests that our numbers underestimate our real values because they’re not capturing everyone that’s been vaccinated,” Bullough said. “The numbers are better than our data suggests, but we’re comfortable that [immunization rates] are still low.”

Educating parents about the importance of immunizing their children is paramount to the Health Department, and they want to start with giving parents accurate information on vaccines.

“There’s a lot of good information and bad information on the Internet,” Rose said. “If you focus on the bad information, the immunizations will scare you. We give [parents] a list of websites that are credible and have accurate data on them.”

Bullough remarks that there continues to be a great deal of alarm over the “perceived lack of safety” of vaccines among parents. Public health data, he says, simply doesn’t back up that fear.

“Vaccines are one of the most successful public health measures in the history of humankind,” Bullough said. “One of the reasons we’re outliving previous generations is because of vaccines.”

The department will seek to educate parents through multiple outlets such as the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program, school nurses by having them educate parents and talking to parents who want exemptions when they’re at the Health Department’s office.

Immunization is also crucial because of what Rose calls the “herd immunity,” which occurs when a significant portion of the population is immunized, created a protection for those who have compromised immune systems. Those who can be at risk include infants, those with cancer or other chronic diseases and pregnant women.

Rose also stressed the importance that vaccines play in our time.

“Sixty years ago, people were dying from measles. Since the vaccine, those [cases] have decreased,” Rose said. “Parents are thinking the chances of their child getting a disease are no big deal, but it is a big deal.”

Immunization requirements

Grades K 6