Есть что улучшить? Предложите правку.
In December 2021, 56.5% of Seattle Public Schools (SPS) students aged 5–18 had completed a primary COVID-19 vaccine series. By June 2022, 80.3% had — well above Washington's statewide rate for children. A CDC report suggests the district's own push may have contributed: its clinics, its messages in families' own languages, and school health staff whom families already trusted.
The starting point
CDC recommended COVID-19 vaccination for people aged 16 and older on December 13, 2020, for ages 12–15 on May 12, 2021, and for ages 5–11 on November 2, 2021. Coverage among school-age children stayed low nationwide: as of March 8, 2023, 61.7% of 12–17-year-olds and 32.7% of 5–11-year-olds had completed the primary series.
SPS serves about 50,000 students in 106 schools. In December 2021, completion was 33.7% among students aged 5–11 and 81.3% among those aged 12–18, and lowest among Black students (27.9%) and multilingual students (30.0%). By January 2022, 27 schools still had low coverage.
What the district did
| When | What |
|---|---|
| November–December 2021 | 55 school-located clinics, planned by SPS with support from Public Health – Seattle & King County (PHSKC). School-day clinics vaccinated children with written parental consent, no parent present, at 41 schools chosen for their size or known barriers to care — schools with more than 500 students, in equity tiers 1–3, with programs for medically fragile or deaf and hard of hearing students, or with less access to large vaccination sites. Regional clinics ran in evenings and on weekends |
| All along | Vaccines at 29 PHSKC-supported school-based health centers |
| January–June 2022 | After school-level data arrived in early January, the effort turned to schools where half or fewer students had completed the series: 26 clinics, including 19 in or near those schools during January–March 2022, after hours or on weekends, open to every student and family member |
In all, SPS held clinics at 54 schools and gave 12,245 doses between November 2021 and June 2022.
Reaching families in their own languages. SPS contacted families weekly by email, prerecorded phone calls and texts through TalkingPoints, a two-way platform working in six languages — Amharic, English, Mandarin, Somali, Spanish and Vietnamese. PHSKC toolkits in several languages went to parent-teacher-student associations and community organisations. Vaccinators were chosen for cultural competency — among them an independent, Black-owned pharmacy whose staff spoke several African languages.
School by school. One school sent multilingual staff from its health center to vaccinate students at home or at work; completion among its 11–21-year-olds rose from 45% in January 2022 to 93% by June. Another held health events for the Somali community with a community health organisation and cohosted a clinic with a local mosque. Every school relied on its health staff to reach families directly.
The results, January to June 2022
| Group | Jan 2022 | Jun 2022 | Relative rise |
|---|---|---|---|
| All students | 71.5% | 80.3% | 12.3% |
| Aged 5–11 | 61.0% | 74.0% | 21.3% |
| Black students | 33.3% | 45.9% | 37.8% |
| Black students aged 5–11 | 13.5% | 29.9% | 121.8% |
| Multilingual students | 42.6% | 59.1% | 38.7% |
| Multilingual students aged 5–11 | 28.9% | 50.4% | 74.6% |
| Students at low-coverage schools | 36.0% | 51.7% | 43.4% |
| Low-coverage schools, aged 5–11 | 34.8% | 51.1% | 46.9% |
| Hispanic or Latino students | 61.2% | 72.5% | 18.6% |
| Asian students | 77.9% | 88.2% | 13.2% |
| White students | 84.2% | 90.8% | 7.8% |
Among students aged 12–18, completion went from 82.7% to 86.6%. Every group that started low rose significantly, but completion stayed lowest among Black and multilingual students.
For comparison, completion among children aged 5–17 was 42.6% in Washington — close to the national 43.4% in June 2022 — and 62.2% in Seattle and King County.
What it does and doesn't show
The authors list six limitations:
- There was no comparison group, so the program's share of the rise can't be measured.
- Where students were vaccinated wasn't recorded; some may have been vaccinated outside SPS.
- Monthly figures are snapshots, so a group's rise isn't individual change in behaviour.
- Students vaccinated out of state may be missing.
- Seattle families may be more vaccine-confident than elsewhere.
- Other influences on confidence or access may have been missed.
Even so, the report argues that schools can reach children with no regular source of medical care. School health staff are likely to be trusted by families. Other studies found school clinics raised HPV and influenza vaccination, and they may work best alongside school messaging that builds confidence in vaccines.
Sources
Based on Fairlie T, Chu B, Thomas ES, et al., "School-Based Interventions to Increase Student COVID-19 Vaccination Coverage in Public School Populations with Low Coverage — Seattle, Washington, December 2021–June 2022," Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 72(11), CDC; a work of the United States government in the public domain. Two paragraphs and both tables missing from the imported copy were taken from the report's full text in PubMed Central (PMC10027407).
Лицензия: CC0 1.0 (общественное достояние) · По материалам www.cdc.gov
1
0
0
0
Комментарии
