Vaccines are awesome! Spread the word during National Immunization Awareness Month

You don’t have to be superhuman to have the power to protect yourself and your community from infectious diseases. You just have to be immunized!

August is National Immunization Awareness Month, and it’s the perfect time to learn about vaccinations for both you and your family.

Getting vaccinated doesn’t only protect yourself, it also helps protect your whole community. Ever heard of herd immunity? If most of your community is immunized against a disease, then that disease won’t have the chance to break out and spread. That means that people who are unable to get certain vaccinations, like very young babies or people with immune system problems, can still be protected.

To achieve community immunity, it’s key that every person who can be vaccinated gets their shots. Make sure the members of your “herd” get the memo with our National Immunization Awareness Month e-card.

Vaccines are important for all ages of people, that’s why each week of National Immunization Awareness Month has a different theme: adults, pregnant women, babies and young children, and preteens and teens.

• Adults: Vaccinations don’t end once you grow up. Find out what vaccines adults need with this helpful quiz.
• Pregnant women: Vaccines can transfer immunity to fetuses, so that babies are protected once they’re born. See what’s recommended for pregnant women.
• Kids and teens: For schoolchildren, getting updated shots should be right next to buying new pencils and paper on the to-do list. Parents can find out what vaccines their kids need via the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website. 

For even more tips and tools to share, check out the National Public Health Information Coalition site.

Give it a shot: Share our e-card for National Immunization Awareness Month

We can’t believe it’s August already, but we’re ready for National Immunization Awareness Month.  You probably know something about vaccines, but we all need to make sure we’re up to date. So remind the people you care about with our new e-card, just in time for flu season.

To stay safe and to help keep our communities healthy, it’s important for all of us to be vaccinated. Check out this blog post about how you getting a vaccine can help keep everyone else healthy, too.

For more information, check out our Get Ready vaccination fact sheets for kids, teens and adults. To help promote immunizations in your community, check out this great toolkit.

We’ve all got a part to play in the health of our communities. So roll up your sleeve and send out our new e-card to remind your friends of the importance of vaccinations!

These people caught measles. Who’s next?

Measles is a very infectious disease. It’s so infectious that just being around someone who has it can make you sick. And you can even get it from the air after they’ve gone.

The measles virus.
Image credit // CDC /
Goldsmith and Bellini

Take the case of two travelers who shared the same Chicago airport gate. One was a 19-month-old child who’d received a first dose of measles vaccine, but got sick with measles while traveling. Another was a 46-year-old adult on a different flight who was diagnosed with measles a few weeks later. Researchers say the adult caught it from the child.

While the child could have passed the illness along anywhere at the airport where the two travelers crossed, researchers think that it probably happened when the child’s family was waiting near the gate to board and the adult traveler exited the plane. Measles can stay in the air for up to two hours, even after an infected person leaves. Luckily, in this case, both patients recovered.

Fast-forward to this spring in Washington state. A very sick woman in Clallam County caught measles while visiting her doctor at a hospital that was treating a patient with measles earlier. The virus stayed in the air of the hospital just like it was in the air at the airport gate. After being around the virus in the hospital, her body was unable to fight it and she died. Her death was the first from measles in 12 years in the United States.

Traveling safe includes staying healthy.
Get vaccinated before you get on board!
Image credit // pexels.com

Both stories offer us a few reminders:
• To protect others, everyone who can be vaccinated should be. It only takes one sick person to make everyone else sick.
• International travelers ages 12 months and older should have two doses of measles vaccinations. The odds of getting sick go up if you haven’t gotten vaccinated or aren’t fully vaccinated.
• If you think you have measles, don’t go to the doctor’s office. Stay home and call your physician with your symptoms.

Protect yourself and protect others. Get vaccinated.

Herd immunity. Heard of it?

August is National Immunization Awareness Month!  Watch out for more updates on vaccines coming soon! 

Image credit // Toby Amodeo

You probably know that vaccines protect your body from catching a disease. Many people get vaccinated to protect themselves. But did you also know that getting vaccinated could protect your friends, family and even strangers in your community as well?

Getting vaccinated doesn’t just prevent you from getting sick. It also stops you from spreading a disease to your friends and family. The same goes for other people. If your neighbors get vaccinated, it will keep them and those around them safe as well. If your entire block gets vaccinated, it will protect those people and people on the next block over. And if a whole lot more people get vaccinated, that’s when the “herd” idea comes in.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases says that herd immunity, also known as community immunity, is when the majority of people in a community get vaccinated. 

Image credit // CDC / Judy Schmidt

People who get vaccinated are also protecting people who can’t get vaccinated, like newborns or those whose immune systems don’t work well. The more people who get vaccinated, the safer everyone else will be.

Everyone can play a role in improving their health and those around them by getting vaccinated.  Check out our free Get Ready fact sheet on vaccinations here!

Protect your community and join the herd!

Immunizations: why you need to stay up to date

Imagine that there’s a virus that makes you very sick, or may even kill you. This virus is easy to spread to other people. And because it’s a virus, antibiotics don’t work against it. Wouldn’t you do whatever you could to avoid getting sick from that virus? And wouldn’t you want to protect your family, friends and co-workers? 

No imagination needed. There are viruses that cause diseases like the one described above, such as measles, mumps, influenza, chickenpox and polio. The good news is that we can protect ourselves and those around us from many diseases by staying up to date on required immunizations.

What is immunization? It’s another way of saying that you have been vaccinated against a certain disease. There are two ways to think about how immunization protects us. The first way is that immunization against a certain disease protects you from the bug that causes the disease. The second way immunization protects is that if you’re immunized, you won’t be spreading the disease to others. Immunization “breaks the chain” by helping you to not catch or spread the disease from or to other people. 

So check your immunization record — even if you’re an adult! — and records for your children and pets. If the immunization record is not up to date or is incomplete, take care of that as soon as possible.

Check out APHA’s Get Ready website for more information on how you can do your part to stay protected from diseases that can be prevented through immunization.

August is National Immunization Awareness Month. Get free resources and materials to share in your community. 

August is National Immunization Awareness Month

The back-to-school rush is well underway. In fact, for some students, summer vacation is already over. With August observed as National Immunization Awareness Month, it’s a perfect time to think about vaccinations and remind family, friends and co-workers to catch up on their shots.

Immunizations save lives and protect communities. Thanks to vaccinations, many disease threats have been eliminated or greatly reduced in the United States.

Immunizations aren’t just for babies. In fact, they can help everyone protect themselves from serious diseases and illnesses. For example, young kids need shots to protect them against diseases such as polio and hepatitis, while older kids need immunizations for meningitis and HPV.

Access the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s immunization schedules to see which immunizations are right for you and your family.

For more information on immunizations, check out our Get Ready vaccination fact sheet. Also, download and share our vaccination fact sheets with information on kids, teens and adults.