The decline in vaccine preventable disease is one of the most significant public health accomplishments of the 20th century. Immunization can prevent the debilitating, sometimes fatal, effects of infectious diseases such as polio, measles and rubella. Additional benefits include prevention of work loss by parents to care for ill children and prevention of lost earnings from disability. Organisms that cause vaccine preventable diseases have not disappeared. Rather, they have receded and will reemerge if vaccination coverage drops.
Vaccines protect both vaccinated individuals and protect communities as well.
When vaccination levels in a community are high, the few who are not vaccinated often are indirectly protected. Vaccine preventable diseases can cause illness in all age groups, but elderly persons with chronic health conditions such as heart disease, diabetes and chronic respiratory disease are particularly at risk. An annual influenza vaccine and a lifetime dose of pneumococcal vaccine are effective strategies to prevent and reduce illness and deaths from these highly infectious diseases. State registries that enroll children and record their vaccinations are another valuable tool for helping parents and providers identify immunization needs of individual children, assessing coverage in individual practices, and generating community wide estimates of immunization status. New Hampshire s immunization registry moved from pilot testing to provider enrollment in late 2000.