| At the
beginning of each year, the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC), in collaboration with several professional
societies, releases updated versions of the recommended U.S.
immunization schedules for children and teens, as well as for
adults. These updated schedules reflect changes that were made in
official vaccination recommendations during the previous year. |
|
|
Immunization schedules for children and teens ages 0 to 18 years |
|
|
Recommended
Immunization Schedules for Persons Aged 0 Through 18 Years, United
States, 2016. This six-page schedule, which was published online
by CDC on Feb. 1, includes the age-based routine vaccination
schedule for children and teens and the approved "catch-up"
immunization schedule for people ages 4 months through 18 years
who start vaccination late or who are more than one month behind
schedule. |
|
| The schedule
also includes three pages of essential explanatory footnotes.
An
article in the Feb. 5 MMWR (pages 86–87) provides a summary of the
changes for 2016, including the new meningococcal B vaccine (MenB)
recommendations for people in certain high-risk groups who are age
10 years and older, as well as the category B recommendation to
vaccinate teens and young adults ages 16 through 23 years (with a
preferred age range for vaccination at 16 to 18 years) who are not
at high risk. (Category B recommendations are made to allow
individual clinical decision making.) |
|
| Also
highlighted in the new guidance is a recommendation to administer
human papillomavirus vaccine (HPV) beginning at age 9 years for
children with a history of sexual abuse.
CDC’s immunization
schedule website offers multiple options for viewing or printing
the schedules. Easy-to-read versions for parents are also
available. |
|
|
Adult immunization schedules for adults 19 years and older |
|
|
Recommended
Adult Immunization Schedule, United States, 2016. The five-page
adult schedule provides the “combined version” of recommendations
by age range as well as by medical condition, two pages of
essential footnotes, and a final page summarizing the
contraindications and precautions for adult vaccine use.
An
article in the Feb. 5 MMWR (pages 88–90) summarizes changes to the
adult guidance, including the new meningococcal serogroup B
vaccine recommendations described in the paragraph above, as well
as the addition of 9-valent HPV vaccine to the schedule that can
be used for vaccination of both males and females. |
|
| Like the
childhood and adolescent schedules described above, several
additional formats of the adult schedules, including
patient-friendly versions,
are available on the CDC website. |
|
|
IAC's summaries of CDC vaccine recommendations for children and
adults |
|
| To make your
job easier, the Immunization Action Coalition (IAC) has updated
its two user-friendly documents that summarize the guidance
contained in the current CDC/ACIP recommendations. |
|
|
|
| Each summary
includes the routine schedule, spacing between doses, schedules
for catch-up vaccination, routes of administration, and
contraindications and precautions for all routinely recommended
vaccines in the United States. |
|
| These
summaries of ACIP recommendations have long proved their value.
For almost two decades, they have been top downloads from IAC's
website for busy healthcare professionals. They have been
reprinted in textbooks and state health department newsletters and
distributed at countless medical, nursing and public health
conferences. Print the summaries on card stock and place them in
every exam room for easy reference by busy clinic staff. |
|
|
Additional helpful materials about vaccine recommendations from
IAC |
|
| Within the
last year, IAC has updated the following specialized
recommendation summaries for situations that providers often find
confusing: |
|
|
|
| To assist
your practice, take advantage of these summaries and
more than 300
other ready-to-copy IAC materials for healthcare professionals and
patients on the IAC website. |
| |
ACIP Recommendations
Vaccine Information Statements 
