After back-to-back severe influenza seasons, pediatric infectious diseases experts remain concerned about a troubling trend: Fewer people are getting vaccinated.
That challenge will be the focus of “Influenza Prevention: Rethinking the Paradigm of Vaccinating Children and Pregnant Women,” Thursday, Oct. 22, 8-9 a.m. ET. The session will be moderated by Flor Munoz, MD, MSc, associate professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine, and Brian Chow, MD, director of the Beall Positive Care Clinic at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. Suchitra Rao, MD, professor at Children’s Hospital Colorado, and Samantha M. Olson, PhD, epidemiologist at the University of Georgia, will present during the session.
The session will focus on two related questions: how to improve influenza vaccine uptake among children and how to optimize vaccination during pregnancy to protect both mothers and infants. It will also address current recommendations, opportunities to improve pediatric vaccination rates and optimal vaccination approaches during pregnancy.
Dr. Rao’s presentation, “Capitalizing on Every Opportunity to Protect Children From Influenza,” grew from a simple observation.
“Despite the fact that the last two seasons have been some of the worst flu seasons we’ve seen, especially in kids plus adults, we’ve also seen a decrease in the amount of people who are getting vaccinated against influenza,” she said.
Her presentation will highlight practical ways health care systems can improve vaccine uptake by offering influenza vaccination in settings beyond traditional primary care visits. Dr. Rao and colleagues reviewed approximately 400 pediatric influenza hospitalizations and discovered that many children had interacted with the health care system before becoming ill.
“We found that 42% of them had a visit to some setting at our health care institution ... during a time when, in theory, they could have gotten a flu vaccine if it was offered,” she said.
That finding prompted the development of a comprehensive vaccination program reaching children in emergency departments, urgent care centers, subspecialty clinics, inpatient units and even perioperative settings. The results have been dramatic. In one perioperative program, influenza vaccinations increased from approximately 140 doses to more than 900 in a year and eventually reached 3,000 to 4,000 vaccinations annually.
Central to the strategy is leveraging trusted health care professionals across multiple settings.
“Studies show that one of the most important factors around whether someone decides to get a flu vaccine is that strong provider recommendation,” Dr. Rao said. “It’s not just the physician, it’s the nurse, it’s the respiratory therapist. So we try to engage as many different people as possible.”
Protecting Pregnant Women
The second half of the session, “Optimal Timing of Influenza Vaccination in Pregnancy to Protect the Mother and Her Infant,” will be presented by Dr. Olson. Her talk will examine vaccination strategies that maximize protection for pregnant women while also safeguarding newborns through passive immunity.
Dr. Rao said the topic is especially important because the youngest infants face some of the highest risks from influenza.
“We also know that the most severe complications from flu can arise in those kids under the age of 1,” she said. “So we need to rely on our adult providers to help protect the babies by vaccinating the pregnant moms.”
She is particularly interested in whether lessons learned in pediatric vaccine promotion can help improve vaccination rates during pregnancy.
Dr. Rao asks whether there are strategies we’re using in pediatric settings “that we can also expand to adult settings and people who are taking care of pregnant women? Are there ways that we can cross collaborate?”