NCJ Number
215294
Journal
Corrections Today Volume: 68 Issue: 4 Dated: July 2006 Pages: 54-56
Date Published
July 2006
Length
3 pages
Annotation
This article briefly discusses the importance of immunizing adolescents in juvenile residential facilities, how juvenile residential facilities can receive no-cost vaccines, and programs for getting vaccines to adolescents in high-risk settings.
Abstract
The detention and incarceration periods provide an opportunity, and possibly the only opportunity, to immunize medically underserved youths who are at risk for several vaccine-preventable diseases. Vaccines can prevent tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis, hepatitis B, meningococcal infections, chicken pox, measles, mumps and rubella or MMR, and cervical cancer (HPV). Additionally, adolescents held in juvenile residential facilities can receive these vaccines at no-cost. Any provider authorized under State law to prescribe vaccines can receive free vaccines through the Vaccines for Children (VFC) program. VFC is federally funded and provides government-purchased vaccines to eligible children through the age of 18. However, delivering all these vaccines will require added effort by the juvenile justice system. Current programs successful in vaccinating high-risk youth have focused only on hepatitis B because of its significance with high-risk youth. Collaborating with community partners and local or State health department staff is essential to adolescent vaccination programs in juvenile facilities. In addition to the difficulty in getting the necessary vaccines to high-risk youth, it is most difficult for correctional staff to determine which vaccines the adolescents have already received. Close collaboration between juvenile justice facilities, public health departments, and private health providers may prove to be an essential component to overcoming many of the challenges of dose completion among detained adolescents. Table, references