Editorial: Vaccines and Public Health
- Autores: Michel A. Ibrahim
- Localización: Epidemiologic reviews, ISSN 0193-936X, ISSN-e 1478-6729, Vol 28, 2006, págs. 1-2
- Idioma: inglés
- Enlaces
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Resumen
Health workers have known for decades that infant mortality, among all health indices, is an excellent proxy indicator for gauging the socioeconomic and affluence levels of a country. Give me a country's infant mortality rate, and I will place that country in the correct position on the “affluence scale” of nations. Can we make the same observation about vaccination rates and policies? Do these rates and policies give us some indication of the socioeconomic standing of a country, a region within a country, or a racial/ethnic group within a region? Moreover, in this age, we may want to ask another question of immense consequence: Does vaccination status point to the local, state, or national level of preparedness to respond effectively to unforeseen major disasters, natural or intentional? In this 2006 thematic issue of Epidemiologic Reviews on vaccines and public health, we present reviews on important facets of some vaccines against preventable diseases and of vaccination policies. The reviews raise issues such as whether to target high-risk groups or adopt universal approaches, emphasizing vaccination of children, immunization coverage and vaccine distribution, and the challenges of incorporating new vaccines into ongoing, proven intervention strategies.
