Teen vaccination rates are on the rise, according to the 2009 National Immunization Survey results of Teen (NIS-Teen) — a phone survey of households with children between the ages of 13 and 17 conducted by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The CDC report indicates that more teens were administered with Tdap (tetanus, diptheria, and pertussis), meningitis, and HPV vaccines between 2008 and 2009. While the report sheds a positive light on this country’s vaccination rates, there are obvious disparities among different regions. For example, while the Tdap vaccination rate for Colorado was 76.6 percent (up from 40.8 percent nationally), Mississippi’s rate was only 22.6 percent. The only states with vaccination rates of at least 60 percent for all three vaccines were in New England.
“We are hopeful that this may be an indication that the unfounded fear of vaccines is finally falling,” says ACSH’s Jeff Stier
“This is very good news, but there is still more work to be done, especially in the South,” says ACSH's Dr. Elizabeth Whelan.
