KEYWORDS:
New Vaccines, PCV-7, Public Health Immunization clinics, VFC Program

BACKGROUND:
In September of 2000, a pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV-7) first became available for use in Los Angeles County Department of Health Services (DHS) Immunization and Personal Health Clinics. Because resources were not available to enhance clinic staffing, a concern arose that the parental education and patient assessment activities specific to PCV-7 would cause decreases in the numbers of patients seen, as reflected by a decrease in the number of doses of the other ACIP currently recommended vaccines given per clinic session.

OBJECTIVE(S):
To determine the impact of PCV-7 usage, in its first year of availability, on the number of doses of other ACIP recommended vaccines given to infants and children in DHS clinics.

METHOD(S):
A review of the doses of all ACIP recommended vaccines given to children £1 year of age in the 41 DHS clinics by month, from October 1999 through July 2000, was compared to the doses of the same vaccines given to children of the same ages from October 2000 to July 2001. Descriptive analyses of doses for each vaccine were performed in order to identify differences in doses administered for the two study periods.

RESULT(S):
Utilization of PCV-7 consistently increased, reaching high levels in May, June, and July of 2001. Excluding PCV-7, neither the number of first doses of DTaP nor the total doses for each of the recommended vaccines given to children £1 year of age differed for the two study periods.

CONCLUSIONS(S):
Use of the new vaccine PCV-7 in DHS clinics did not affect the numbers of doses of the other ACIP recommended vaccines received by children £1 year of age.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
To understand the impact of ACIP newly recommended vaccines on the use of ACIP currently recommended vaccines in public health clinics.