Kansas Health Institute | Information For Policy Makers. Health for Kansans.

TOPEKA — The rate of childhood immunizations in Kansas is now among the highest in the nation, a dramatic change from where the state stood a decade ago.

“We were 9th from bottom of the list in 2002 and now we’re 7th from the top of the list” said State Health Director Dr. Jason Eberhart-Phillips, about the series of childhood vaccinations that includes measles, polio and whooping cough. “That’s a real turnaround.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently released its latest national data on childhood immunizations.

Among the findings of the 2009 National Immunization Survey:

• Kansas exceeds the national average in 16 of 22 measures;

• In many of those categories, it ranks among the top 10 states;

• The rate of varicella or chicken pox vaccinations, historically low in Kansas, are among those categories of most increase in the last several years; and

• The categories where Kansas ranks the lowest are for vaccines that are relatively new and/or not required for school enrollment.

Dr. Gianfranco Pezzino, senior fellow at the Kansas Health Institute and a former state epidemiologist, said it’s hard to know what prompted the improvements.

“The reasons for the low rates were multi-factoral,” he said. “And as such, the reasons for the increased rates are multi-factoral. But whatever it is, it’s time for us to celebrate this. It’s good for us and good for our kids.”

In 2006, the Immunize Kansas Kids project was launched. That may have contributed to the higher rates. The group identified potential factors affecting the state’s low immunization rates and made recommendations for ways to improve them.

Since then, many of those recommendations have been put in place, Pezzino said.

This year, for example, all of the state’s local health departments may access and update a web-based, centralized immunization registry, which allows for better recordkeeping. Also, more private medical providers are participating in the federal Vaccines for Children program, which provides free vaccines for eligible low-income families.

Pezzino also said more private providers are immunizing children in their own offices instead of referring children and their families to local health departments.

The majority of the state’s children were previously vaccinated in local health departments, said Sue Bowden, director of the immunization program for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.

“We started really encouraging the provisions of immunization in a child’s medical home rather than referring them to local health departments,” Bowden said. “The percent of immunizations provided in public settings is less now than it was in 2003 because of some of those efforts.”

The state also is less susceptible now to fluctuations in the national supply of vaccinations, Bowden and Pezzino said because of more reliable supplies and stockpiles.

“That’s one of the problems Kansas had in the past, where rates would be good but then there would be a glitch in the system and they would drop,” because there weren’t enough vaccinations distributed, Pezzino said. “What I like is that in the last few years there has been a more steady increase. That assures me that the system is becoming more sustainable.”

Eberhart-Phillips said he was pleased with the progress but that there was still work to be done to educate parents about the importance of vaccines.

“What we’re concerned with is that there may be a small but potentially growing subset of the population who are skeptical of the safety and efficacy of vaccines,” he said. “We need to be unequivocal in our response to that concern and to hear people out and help them understand that we share the same thing in wanting to give our children our very best and keep them safe.

“Every baby born in Kansas is another person starting from square one on immunizations, someone who is vulnerable to infections if one comes back or flares up in that community where the child lives,” he said. “Every new baby presents a challenge.”