The LSU Health New Orleans School of Medicine faculty has partnered with the Louisiana Chapter of the American College of Physicians (ACP) to raise the immunization rates of Louisiana adults through ACP’s I Raise the Rates Program. August is National Immunization Awareness Month, beginning with Adult Immunization Week.
“Vaccines are not just for children,” notes Lee Engel, MD, FACP, LSU Health New Orleans Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine. “You never outgrow the need for immunizations because even healthy adults can contract serious, and sometimes deadly, diseases that could have been prevented by vaccines.”
- Each year, an average of 226,000 people are hospitalized due to influenza and between 3,000 and 49,000 people die of influenza and its complications; the majority are adults.
- About 900,000 people get pneumococcal pneumonia every year, leading to as many as 400,000 hospitalizations and 19,000 deaths.
- 700,000 to 1.4 million people suffer from chronic hepatitis B, with complications such as liver cancer.
- In the U.S., HPV causes about 17,000 cancers in women and about 9,000 cancers in men each year. About 4,000 women die each year from cervical cancer.
- Of the approximately 1 million cases of shingles that occur annually, up to one in five cases (10-20%) involve the eye.
The specific vaccines adults need are determined by factors such as age, lifestyle, risk conditions, locations of travel, and previous vaccines. Information about recommended vaccines for adults is available at http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/hcp/adult.html.
LSU Health New Orleans has challenged its medical residents to participate in the I Raise the Rates Program competition. The top prize is a trip to the ACP Annual Meeting in San Diego next year.
“The I Raise the Rates Program is making headway in Louisiana,” says Dr. Engel, who is also Governor of the Louisiana Chapter of the American College of Physicians. “By helping your healthcare providers keep your vaccines up to date, the life that could be saved may be more than your own.”