Report from the CDC: Vaccines in women


Women's healthcare providers are encouraged to incorporate immunizations into their clients' care. Because women often rely on their healthcare provider for primary and preventive care, that provider may dramatically improve clients' quality of life by decreasing the risk of vaccine-preventable diseases. Women often assume responsibility for the entire family's health, and educating women can prevent disease in the household. Women's healthcare providers should offer and promote these vaccines: hepatitis B, varicella, measles/mumps/rubella, and combined tetanus/diphtheria toxoids for adolescent and young adult women, inactivated influenza vaccine during pregnancy, and pneumococcal, influenza, and tetanus/diphtheria vaccines for the adult or elderly woman. Education should include the importance of vaccines and the rationale for their necessity during each stage of life. Several strategies for implementing and supporting an immunization program have been shown to improve adult immunization rates. These include employing such protocols as standing orders, screening for adult immunizations at each office encounter, and using previously developed immunization documentation forms. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommendations, vaccine information statements (VIS), and storage and handling guidelines are readily available at low or no cost through CDC and professional organizations or immunization interest group websites. The current adult vaccine schedule assists providers to determine the need for vaccines by displaying graphically both age and medical risk factors.

(Source: Schmidt JV, Kroger AT, Roy SL. J Womens Health (Larchmt). 2004 Apr;13(3):249-57)