Despite the advances in medicine and research focused on improving children’s health, most children around the world are becoming more susceptible to a number of preventable diseases. Children are becoming more vulnerable to infections from both communicable and non-communicable diseases that are both preventable and treatable. The World Health Organization (2020) notes that the lives of children aged from 0 to 18 years are becoming more threatened by these diseases. This is due to changes in the climate, increased environmental pollution, compromised and harmful marketing of foods, sedentary living, poor eating habits, increased risk of injury and experiencing conflict and violence, and inequalities in governance and health care systems. Childhood immunization can help manage these diseases that are threatening the lives of several children in the United States. However, the current immunization efforts face various barriers, such as misinformation on vaccines and concerns over the safety of child-targeted vaccines. Through health promotion and education, the issues of misinformation and other concerns related to vaccines can be addressed, and trust in vaccines is restored. This paper addresses childhood immunization and why it is a healthcare issue of concern and important for health promotion among U.S. parents. It will also provide a summary of agreed-upon goals with the health promotion plan participants.
Childhood Immunization and Vaccination
Immunization through the use of vaccines has proved to be one of the greatest successful developments in medicine and health care that has had the greatest impacts on human life and the survival of humanity. Vaccines targeted toward infectious diseases have been developed for use in both adult and childcare settings which have greatly helped save lives and provide other health-related benefits to society (Piot et al., 2019). According to the World Health Organization (WHO) (n.d.), vaccines improve the ability of natural immunity to provide protection against diseases and infections. Vaccines currently help prevent the loss of up to five million lives a year. Based on the benefits of vaccines on how the body responds to infections, achieving full childhood immunization can ensure that children in the U.S. can live better and healthier lives and reach adulthood.
Children are expected to complete most of their designated vaccines by the end of their 6th year from birth. However, many children in the U.S. are not receiving the recommended number of vaccines or a not getting any vaccinations. The rate of unvaccinated children has quadrupled between 2001 and 2017, further growing by three percent (Hill et al., 2019). Evidence shows that the growth rate of unvaccinated children in the U.S. is due to uninformed parent choices, lack of health coverage, misappropriation of vaccination drives, and system discrimination (Hill et al., 2019).
Need for Health Promotion for Childhood Immunization
Immunization, especially for children, as earlier noted, is important for children’s healthy development and their ability to overcome infectious diseases. Failure to have children vaccinated has major negative health consequences. Failure to vaccinate a child can lead to the child getting seriously ill, having a lowered quality of life, poor physical and mental development, as well becoming a risk factor for causing disease outbreaks within the family and the community (UNICEF Indonesia, n.d.). Additionally, failure to fully vaccinate the children can further lead to a lowered community life expectancy and increased costs of child care and upbringing due to costs related to disease complications.
The current increase in the rate of unvaccinated children and the level of vaccine hysteria due to false vaccine risks make childhood immunization and vaccination an important healthcare issue that requires a health promotion plan. There are numerous conspiracies related to the safety of vaccines for children. Although children may indeed have adverse reactions after vaccination, the benefits of vaccines in developing acquired immunity outweigh the risks of vaccination (Nakayama, 2019). Misinformation on the safety of vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic has proved the extent to which lack of vaccine information, misinformation, and other social-economic factors interact to determine vaccine acceptance (Malik et al., 2020). A health promotion plan will create awareness and provide health education related to the need for childhood vaccination as well counter the misinformation about vaccine safety and other community concerns.
Agreed Upon SMART Goals for Childhood Immunization
Increasing the rate of vaccination is among the major behavioral objectives of Healthy People 2030. In collaboration with key community representatives, setting SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound) goals is important for promoting childhood immunization. The SMART goals were developed to provide clarity on what we needed to achieve, the deadline of the goals, and to guide the operations of the health promotion plan. The SMART goals were also used as motivation for the team to achieve the goals. The agreed-upon SMART goals include the following:
Identify the current gaps in childhood immunization,
Identify and address community-level concerns over childhood immunization,
Identify barriers to childhood immunization in the U.S and develop barrier-specific solutions applicable in 12 months,
Identify community-level resources to support immunization awareness and childhood immunization drive.
Conclusion
Immunization can protect children from major infectious diseases. Generally, immunization is a healthcare development that guarantees national and global health security. Many parents may keep their children from vaccination to vaccine safety concerns, disinformation, and misinformation. As such, a childhood-focused health promotion plan can help address the identified concerns on childhood immunization.
References
Hill, H. A., Elam-Evans, L. D., Yankey, D., Singleton, J. A., & Kang, Y. (2019). Vaccination Coverage Among Children Aged 19–35 Months — United States, 2017. MMWR. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 67(40), 1123–1128. https://doi.org/10.15585/MMWR.MM6740A4