KEYWORDS:
Vaccine-preventable disease
disease surveillance
immunization registry

BACKGROUND:
Oregon Immunization ALERT is one of the most developed statewide registies. ALERT is integrated within the Oregon Immunization program and supports disease surveillance activities. ALERT is also involved with a CDC study to study the efficacy of the new Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine.

OBJECTIVE(S):
Support disease surveillance activities and case control studies through linking with immunization registry data.

METHOD(S):
Given a list of children who may be contagious for HepB, ALERT searched for immunization histories and last doctor of record.

RESULT(S):
1) ALERT was able to provide information about the last doctor of record for children who may be contagious for HepB. This proven to be very useful for contacting providers and parents and ensuring appropriate follow-up. 2) ALERT data are linked with disease surveillance data as part of a case control study to determine the efficacy of Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine. Over 90% of the disease cases and controls were in ALERT with immunization histories.

CONCLUSIONS(S):
Immunization registries are an important component for tracking disease prevention in a population, for supporting surveillance activities to help prevent the spred of disease, and for determing the efficacy of new vaccines.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
To understand how immunization registies can be used as a resource to support disease surveillance for HepB and Pneumococcal and other childhood diseases.