@article{0737f06199ff4d609b508478344376e3,
title = "The use of pharmacy immunization services in rural communities",
abstract = "Pharmacies have been recommended as alternative sites for the delivery of immunization services, especially to medically underserved adults and children in inner cities and rural areas. Currently, 35 of 50 states in the USA have legalized the administration of vaccines by pharmacists on the basis of certain training requirements and specific protocols. Since the role of pharmacists is expected to expand, it is important to assess the factors that would enable them to improve the delivery of immunization services and the acceptance of these services by communities. It is particularly important for pharmacists to have knowledge of community circumstances and be able to respond to community needs. This case study of a pharmacy immunization programme (PIP) in rural West Virginia assessed how well pharmacists were aware of community circumstances and which community factors affected the utilization of pharmacy-delivered immunizations. Our findings suggest that although pharmacists played important roles as facilitators, hosts and motivators in PIP, they overestimated the trust placed in them by community members. The convenient locations of pharmacies and the convenient times when they offered immunization services were found to be the determining factors of mothers' decisions to take their children to these places for their vaccinations. The study concludes that as the use of pharmacies as sources of immunization is expected to continue to expand, pharmacists should take these factors into consideration when they decide to offer immunizations.",
keywords = "Community participation, Immunization service utilization, Rural pharmacies, Vaccination-seeking decisions",
author = "Ndiaye, {S. M.} and S. Madhavan and Washington, {M. L.} and L. Shui and J. Tucker and S. Rosenbluth and T. Richards",
note = "Funding Information: The pharmacy immunization programme (PIP) was a 5-year (1995–1999) demonstration project funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and developed through collaboration between the American Pharmaceutical Association and the West Virginia University School of Pharmacy. The objective of PIP was to expand the role of pharmacists as advocates for, and providers of, immunization services for children from birth to 2 years of age in rural West Virginia. Like many programmes developed in the 1990s to increase childhood immunizations, such as {\textquoteleft}Every Child by Two{\textquoteright} (ECBT), PIP focused on children aged 0–24 months. ECBT was founded in 1991 by former First Lady of the USA Rosalyn Carter and former First Lady of Arkansas Betty Bumpers in response to the 1989–1991 measles epidemic that resulted in 55 000 reported cases and 123 deaths. PIP focused on children aged 0–24 months because at the time when the project was implemented, the vaccination status of children was assessed at the age of 2 years, although national data were collected on children aged 19–35 months. A detailed description of the project can be found in Ref. 1 . When the project began in 1995, state immunization coverage of children aged 19–35 months for the 4:3:1 series (4 DPT, 3 polio, 1 MMR) was only 73%, below the national average of 76%. West Virginia and Mississippi were the only states that did not achieve the 1995 Child Immunization Initiative coverage goal for the series. 2 The five contiguous rural West Virginia counties that were selected for the demonstration project were Barbour, Grant, Pendleton, Randolph and Tucker. Child immunization rates in the counties in 1995 averaged 56%. 3 These counties are poor and sparsely populated with few healthcare resources like most areas of West Virginia. 4 ",
year = "2003",
month = mar,
doi = "10.1016/S0033-3506(02)00022-7",
language = "English",
volume = "117",
pages = "88--97",
journal = "Public Health",
issn = "0033-3506",
publisher = "Elsevier",
number = "2",
}