The Perceived Importance of Vaccine Storage Problems and the Variability of Policies and Procedures for Vaccine Storage and Handling Among City and State Immunization Projects in the United States

Learning Objectives for this Presentation:
By the end of the presentation participants will be able to:
Characterize the range of Vaccine Storage and Handling (VSH) policy and procedures across US immunization projects.
Identify projects' perception of VSH issues.
Identify projects' support for evidence-based standards for proper vaccine storage and management of cold chain.

Background:
The Association of Immunization Managers' (AIM) goal is to influence national immunization policy development by providing critical data and input from city and state immunization program managers.
Based on AIM General Membership feedback, there is concern regarding the perception that there is variability of VSH policies and procedures across projects and a lack of evidence-based VSH guidance from the federal government and vaccine manufacturers. Temperature abuse of vaccines may differentially affect the efficacy of vaccines and quantities of vaccines wasted as a result of storage failures.

Objectives:
1) Characterize the range of VSH policy and procedures across US immunization projects, 2) Measure the immunization projects perception of VSH issues and identify projects' support for evidence-based standards.

Methods:
AIM membership or appointed staff volunteered to complete a online survey developed by AIM Vaccine Storage and Handling workgroup that collected information on policy for vaccine storage units and temperature monitoring; process for evaluating and deciding on vaccine viability after out-of-range temperatures; policies on provider reimbursement for vaccine loss.

Results:
There is considerable variability among projects' VSH policy and procedures. There is a general consensus that projects perceive VSH as a critical issue and support standards for VSH policy based on best available evidence and a strategic plan to develop appropriate policy and additional data.

Conclusions:
AIM should begin to encourage the development of evidence-based guidance from the federal government and vaccine manufacturers. In addition, guidance is needed for the standardization of scientifically-valid VSH policy and procedures in order to minimize vaccine damage or wastage due to storage failures.