Asian and Pacific Islander childhood vaccination coverage: National Immunization Survey, 2002-2004.
OBJECTIVE
Public health data on Asian/Pacific Islanders are most often collected and reported as one aggregated group. This aggregation of data can mask potential differences among the many ethnic/national/cultural groups classified as Asian/Pacific Islanders. We used data from the National Immunization Survey (NIS) to examine immunization status for all US children and four mutually exclusive groups: Asian only, Native Hawaiian only, Pacific Islander only, and other.


METHODS
We included information from 64,718 US children 19-35 months of age who had adequate vaccination histories from provider(s) for 2002 to 2004; among these, 2673 (4.3%) were Asian only, Native Hawaiian only, or Pacific Islander only. The sample sizes reported are unweighted, while results are based on weighted analyses.


RESULTS
Vaccination coverage estimates for children in the Native Hawaiian only group were consistently higher than estimates for all US children, whereas those in the Asian only group were nearly the same. Children in the Pacific Islander only group had vaccination coverage estimates that were lower than estimates for all US children.


CONCLUSIONS
The results of this study indicated that although overall the Asian/Pacific Islander group had similar childhood vaccination coverage to all US children, the group does not have homogeneous coverage, with Pacific Islanders having lower coverage. Public health researchers should, whenever possible, examine individual groups of Asian/Pacific Islanders to more accurately measure the health status of this growing population.
Shaw
Kate M
KM
National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 4770 Buford Hwy, NE, Atlanta, Georgia 30341-3717, USA. atk6@cdc.gov
Santibanez
Tammy A
TA
Chu
Susan Y
SY
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001213:Asian; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006801:Humans; D017589:Immunization Programs / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D044468:Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander; D014481:United States