Prevention Matters

"Best and Worst News for Prevention” is based on a purposive sample consisting of expert staff members who each week choose to share their opinions on the best and worst news for prevention.

BEST

KC Health Department hands out vouchers for flu shots

If you are uninsured in the metropolitan area and still need a flu shot, the Kansas City Health Department has a deal for you: It is handing out 25,000 vouchers for free vaccinations at Walgreens pharmacies. Walgreens donated 350,000 of the vouchers to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The department is distributing them to Kansas City and more than a dozen other areas nationwide where there are disparities in vaccination rates and opportunities to address them.

“They’re targeting people who wouldn’t usually get a flu shot; they don’t have insurance or their insurance doesn’t cover it,” said the Health Department’s Jeff Hershberger. The department last week began handing out thousands of vouchers to community organizations.


WORST

Youths With STDs May Not Admit They Had Sex: Young People Not Always Truthful About Sexual Activity, So Routine STD Screenings Are Needed


Young people who say they’ve abstained from sexual intercourse may not be telling the whole truth, an important finding in the ongoing battle against the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Researchers at Emory University in Atlanta examined data on 14,012 young adults in their early 20s, who completed a computer-assisted interviewing survey and provided a urine specimen aimed at detecting three common STDs: chlamydia, gonorrhea, and trichomoniasis.

More than 10% of the young people found to have at least one of the STDs had reported not having penile/vaginal sexual intercourse in the past 12 months. This suggests that routine screening of STDs may be a better way to reduce transmission of diseases.


The “Best and Worst” awards are announced each week in “Prevention Matters,” the blog of Partnership for Prevention. "Best and Worst News for Prevention” is based on a purposive sample of expert staff members who each week choose to share their opinions on the best and worst news for prevention. More information is available at http://www.prevent.org/.

“Herd immunity” is one of the most important concepts behind vaccination – the idea that once a certain percentage of the population is vaccinated against a particular illness, the entire population will be protected even if not everyone has been vaccinated. While the concept has often been demonstrated, it has been hard to prove, but an innovative study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association provides such proof.

In a study funded by the American and Canadian governments, scientists from several Canadian universities and St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital in Tennessee conducted their research in 49 remote Hutterite farming colonies in western Canada. The Hutterites have similar roots to the Amish and live in small, isolated communities, making them perfect subjects for this research.

In 25 of the colonies, all children ages 3 to 15 received seasonal flu shots. In 24 other colonies, the same age children received the hepatitis A vaccine instead. In the colonies without the flu vaccine, more than 10 percent of the population had seasonal flu during that year’s flu season; less than 5 percent of the population in the vaccinated colonies did. This translates to a 60 percent “protective effect” for the whole community and suggests that giving flu shots only to children would still protect the elderly, even if they were not directly vaccinated.

While CDC recommends directly vaccinating high-risk individuals, such as the elderly, and has moved to recommending universal vaccination for the recent H1N1 epidemic, this study provides important evidence for the existence of herd immunity and supports the practice of vaccinating children to prevent further spread of influenza in the population.

Rebecca Barson
Consultant, Partnership for Prevention