Vim & Vigor - Winter 2017 - Gwinnett Medical Center - 31

PROTECTING THOSE
AROUND YOU

BUILDING
AWARENESS

Getting immunized doesn't just help
your own health. It also helps those
around you.
"Vaccinations are very important to
protect yourself as well as to protect
your family members and vulnerable
people," Parker Fiebelkorn says.
Adults must stay up on their shots to
safeguard people who can't get them,
such as infants who are too young for
immunizations and those with compromised immune systems. The latter
group includes people with cancer and
those who have had organ transplants.
Keeping current on vaccinations as
an adult helps build what the public
health community calls herd immunity, Parker Fiebelkorn says.
"Herd immunity is when enough
people are vaccinated against a disease that it protects the broader community," she says. "When enough
people around the unvaccinated
are vaccinated, it basically provides a barrier of protection for the
whole community."

If there are so many good reasons
to be vaccinated, why aren't more
adults doing it? Claire Hannan, executive director of the Association of
Immunization Managers, says there's
a strong infrastructure for childhood
immunization but nothing similar
for adults.
Public health systems include programs to make sure children are getting vaccinated eﬀectively-from
maintaining a database of providers
to ensuring that providers are storing

vaccines properly-but "we really don't
have those systems in place for adults,"
Hannan says.
State programs are steadily improving
by educating people and working with
providers to establish processes that
will improve adult immunization rates,
she says.
She adds, "Adults need to realize they
need to assess their own vaccinations
and get vaccinated, just like they do for
their kids." ■

Stay up on your
shots to safeguard
people who can't
get them, such as

infants.

LEFT PHOTO BY GETTY/ PETER DAZELEY; RIGHT PHOTO BY GLOW IMAGES

SPECIAL SITUATIONS
Some people's circumstances require additional vaccinations. Health care workers,
people with health conditions and those
traveling to certain international locations,
including India and Mexico, might require
speciﬁc immunizations.
For women who are pregnant or people
with speciﬁc health circumstances, the
recommendations for vaccinations may
also be diﬀerent than for the general
population, says Hoyt Gazaway, MD, a
primary care provider at Gwinnett Medical
Group's Bostock Family Medicine. These
include people with HIV, people with no
spleen, those with kidney failure and those
with diabetes.

Why the special care? People with
chronic conditions might not be able to
handle the same infections that healthy
people can easily shake oﬀ; underlying
conditions make them more vulnerable to
disease and its complications. For example,
people with chronic lung disease are at
high risk of complications if they get inﬂuenza or pneumonia. Because their lungs are
already compromised, "getting an infection
on top of it may be too much for them to
handle," says Dr. Gazaway.
People traveling to developing countries
should be vaccinated against hepatitis A. And
those visiting countries where yellow fever is
an issue should be vaccinated against that.

"Vaccinations aren't just a kids' thing,"
explains Dr. Gazaway. "Unfortunately, many
adults are hospitalized or even die from a
preventable disease, which is why vaccines
are so important."

WEBSITE

Get Up to Date
To ﬁnd a PCP for vaccines, visit
gwinnettmedicalgroup.com/
primary.

WINTE R 2017

http://www.gwinnettmedicalgroup.com/primary http://www.gwinnettmedicalgroup.com/primary

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