Many of you are intimately involved in implementing CDC's hepatitis B (hepB) birth dose recommendations. You write orders, create standing orders, develop hospital policies, administer vaccines, document vaccines given in a hospital or practice, order lab tests, provide care to newborns and postpartum women, and make sure written orders are carried out. You are the key players in the complex decision-making process that results in a newborn receiving--or not receiving--hepatitis B vaccine before hospital discharge. You are best positioned, therefore, to shed light on how it is that the U.S. birth dose rate is so low and how it might be increased. For that reason, we have prepared an online survey aimed at gathering your views and experiences with the hepB birth dose. (If you have already filled out this survey after reading about it in Needle Tips, please do not fill it out again.) It is located at

http://www.immunize.org/surveybdd

Our goal is to provide the immunization community with an assessment of the following: how aware you and your colleagues are about CDC's most recent (December 2005) hepB birth dose recommendations, obstacles you have encountered in implementing them, any reasons you have for not implementing them, and actions taken in your work setting aimed at implementing or not implementing them. The survey is completely anonymous.

I am hopeful that your input to this survey will help better define factors that have enabled successful implementation of the 2005 hepB birth dose recommendations and factors that present obstacles to ensuring that all newborns receive this life-protecting vaccine.

Please consider taking a few minutes to fill out the online survey at

http://www.immunize.org/surveybdd

As always, thank you so much for all you do in pursuit of widespread and effective immunization.

Sincerely,

Deborah L. Wexler, MD
Executive Director