Vaccines, wellness and our world today

Editor’s note: This is the first in a three part series exploring vaccines in today’s world.

Vaccines are often referred to as a victim of their own success. With little to no modern first-hand experience of the devastation caused by childhood diseases by the general public, it is easy for some to downplay the fear that drove parents to their health care providers to immunize their children years ago.

As a result, today’s parents have begun in greater numbers to question the need to vaccinate their children, shifting parental fear from disease to the vaccine itself. Contributing to parental hesitancy are unscrupulous researchers, public complacency and opinions of celebrities exploiting their popularity regarding personal health decisions for their children onto the public

Part of this view is a common misconception that epidemics only take place in faraway undeveloped countries, leading to a false sense of security for those of us living in the U.S. However, the recent measles outbreak in the U.S. and Europe demonstrates that this is a false and dangerous belief.

Not only are unvaccinated children at-risk themselves, but they put others who are medically unable to be vaccinated in jeopardy, and by extension, the greater community as well. This is a daily challenge for those of us in public health, as our mission is the health and wellness of the community as our patient.

Understanding how vaccines work and why they are given at certain stages of life can go a long way to increase a better understanding by hesitant parents. Toward this end, Public Health Nursing strives to bring reliable and understandable information to hesitant parents to assist them to make informed decisions for their children.

While Public Health Nursing is cognizant that parents have the right to vaccinate or not, it is our ethical responsibility to inform parents of the consequences of immunization inaction on the health and wellness of their child. This is why each Public Health Nurse spends considerable time reviewing immunization records of each patient, provides appropriate, understandable educational information to each parent, and makes face-to-face time to explore parental fear to respond to questions and to offer options.

One frequently cited reason by parents not to immunize is community immunity. Community Immunity is the means by which the population is protected from communicable disease through appropriate immunization.

While this is true, the caveat is that 95 percent of the community must be immunized in order to provide adequate herd immunity. Our community is nowhere near this percentage, leaving our population at risk for vaccine preventable diseases. Therefore, this argument does not hold up and should be considered by parents.

Another concern parents express is vaccine safety. Yet it is interesting to note that parents don’t seem to express the same anxiety and apprehension directed at other common medical treatments and prevention. Even over-the-counter drugs are more routinely used with a lot less concern for product safety.

The bottom line is this: Vaccines have been researched and reviewed for safety for many years under stringent criteria. And while all medication carries some risk, having a vaccine-preventable disease is a far greater risk to the health and wellness of the individual child and the larger community.

Public Health Nurses understand that parents want to make the best decision they can for their child, and we appreciate that this child is so very precious to each parent. But preventing disease is a serious business that requires serious consideration.

We see a responsible parental role as making the best-informed decision possible when weighing risk with health benefits. A good place to start is to talk to your Public Health Nurses. We are here for you!