 | The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
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| The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
Edgar G Villanueva, BSPH, MHA Cand and Kathy M Ford, MSSW. CDC National Immunization Information Hotline, American Social Health Association, PO Box 13827, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, 919.361.4851, edgvil@ashastd.org
Project Description: The CDC National Immunization Information Hotline (NIIH), operated by the American Social Health Association, began providing free information, referrals and publications, to English and Spanish-speaking callers throughout the United States and Puerto Rico in March of 1997. NIIH is staffed by full-time Information Specialists trained in technical immunization information, communication skills and data collection.
Methods: Staff participate in 80 hours of training prior to answering calls. Calls are then randomly selected to be surveyed for content and demographic information. One out of six calls is surveyed for the English service and one out of two calls is surveyed for the Spanish line due to the lower volume of calls.
Results: In 2001, staff answered 103,200 calls on the English line and 12,600 calls on the Spanish service. Of the surveyed calls from the English service, 30% were from healthcare professionals. Eighty-two percent of these callers were female; with 71% being nurses, 20% doctors, 4% medical office personnel, 3% pharmacists, and 2% physician assistants. The majority of healthcare professionals work in family practice (27%), pediatrics (25%), and public health (25%). Healthcare professional callers discuss immunization schedules (56%), specific shots (54%), conflicting information (21%) and referrals/resources (17%). When concerned about a specific shot, healthcare professionals discussed hepatitis B (29%), DTP/DTaP (18%), MMR (15%), influenza (14%), varicella (13%), and pneumococcal vaccine (11%).
Findings/Conclusions: Whether the caller is the general public or a healthcare professional, NIIH provides information tailored to the callers’ needs and offers resources such as publications, referrals to immunization related agencies and Web site addresses.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Immunizations, Nurses
Related Web page: www.vaccines.ashastd.org
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: CDC National Immunization Information Hotline, operated by the American Social Health Association
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.