| At the beginning of each year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in collaboration with professional societies, releases updated versions of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommended U.S. immunization schedules for children and teens as well as for adults. These updated schedules reflect changes that were made in vaccination recommendations during the previous year. |
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| Immunization schedules for people age 0–18 |
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| Recommended Immunization Schedules for Persons Aged 0 Through 18 Years, United States, 2015(PDF). This six-page schedule, which was published by CDC in late January, includes the age-based routine vaccination schedule for children and teens and the approved “catch-up” immunization schedule for people age 4 months through 18 years who start vaccination late or who are more than one month behind. The schedule also includes three pages of essential explanatory footnotes. An article in the February 6 MMWR (pages 93–94) provides a summary of the changes for 2015. CDC’s immunization schedule website offers multiple options for viewing or printing the schedules. Easy-to-read versions for parents also are available. |
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| Adult immunization schedules for adults 19 years and older |
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| Recommended Adult Immunization Schedule, United States, 2015. The five-page “combined version” of the adult schedule provides recommendations by age group as well as medical condition, two pages of essential footnotes, and a final page summarizing the contraindications and precautions for adult vaccine use. An article in the February 6 MMWR (pages 91–92) summarizes changes to the adult guidance, including new pneumococcal vaccine recommendations. 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. |
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| Summaries of ACIP recommendations for children and adults |
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| To make your job easier, the Immunization Action Coalition (IAC) has just updated its two user-friendly documents that summarize the guidance contained in the current CDC/ACIP recommendations. |
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| These summaries distill the ACIP recommendations for child, teen and adult immunization into two easy-to-use documents. 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. |
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| 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. |
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| Additional helpful materials about vaccine recommendations from IAC |
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| Within the last year, IAC has updated almost all of the following specialized recommendation summaries for situations that providers often find confusing: |
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| Take advantage of these summaries and more than 300 other ready-to-copy IAC materials for healthcare professionals and patients on the IAC website. |
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| Looking for mobile apps about the U.S. vaccination schedule? |
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In March, CDC will release its free interactive 2015 Clinic Vaccine Schedules app for clinicians, which will be available for download via the iTunes App Store or from Google Play. |
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The Society of Teachers of Family Medicine recently released its 2015 Shots Immunizations mobile app for iPhone and Android devices. |
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