The New Year stirs a change in all of us, to seize new opportunities and make new resolutions. For school nurses, when we talk about making resolutions, it is often in reference to our students, and making such resolutions are an important but sometimes daunting task. Our latest program, Stats4Vax: Improving teen vaccination rates one school nurse at a time offers wonderful content to help us give back in our own “school nurse way” – by educating teens and their parents/guardians about the importance of vaccination. Too many teens remain under-vaccinated, 1, 2 and this New Year I encourage all of you to help see that more of our students are up-to-date on their immunizations. It’s one of the greatest ways we can make a difference.
If you haven’t already, check out the Stats4Vax Resource Library, which is full of easy-to-use, customizable tools that can help you conduct important vaccination discussions with your students. Unsure where to get started? A great way to begin is to review the Stats4Vax Backgrounder and then share the Parent/Guardian letters with your school community. The tools can be used all year round, but I encourage you to use this New Year as an opportunity to educate!
Let’s show our students we care by educating them to be their healthiest in 2018! Visit www.Stats4Vax.com now to get started!
Wishing you a happy 2018 from all of us at NASN.
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References
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2016). National, Regional, State, and Selected Local Area Vaccination Coverage Among Adolescents Aged 13–17 Years — United States, 2016. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6633a2.htm.
- United States Census Bureau. (2014). Age and Sex Composition in the United States. Retrieved from https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2014/demo/age-and-sex/2014-age-sex-composition.html.