LANSING — Michigan, with vaccination rates that put it near the bottom of a list of all states, has launched a new campaign — I Vaccinate — that it hopes will boost rates up to 90 percent.
Currently, 67.6 percent of Michigan children aged 19 to 35 months have received all of their recommended vaccinations, according to a 2016 United Health Foundation report.
The program, which was launched in late March, has an “innovative” multi-platform structure that will educate and encourage Michigan residents, according to state officials.
I Vaccinate combines a social media, web and TV presence to convey the importance of vaccinations for communities by focusing on parents’ concerns. Its website offers vaccination schedules, links to the immunization registry and answers questions that parents and guardians typically have.
“We feel that this type of program is novel in that sense. It’s not just the government doctor in the lab coat coming down, shaking his finger and saying, ‘Why are you not vaccinated?’” said Eden Wells, the chief medical officer of the Department of Health and Human Services. “It’s really talking about why vaccinations are so important.”
Wells said that with the help of the Franny Strong Foundation based in West Bloomfield, the program is primed to reduce disease rates.
In the mid-1990s, a private-public partnership called “Immunize Your Little Michigander” elevated Michigan to seventh in vaccination rates, a standing the state has relinquished but seeks to reclaim.
“Vaccines are safe,” Wells said. “Vaccines are still the best way — not only that when we vaccinate our young children, we’re protecting them — but it’s also part of protecting the community.”
Wells said that vaccinations reduce disease incidence rates and the chance of an epidemic. If more people are immunized for a disease, that disease is less likely to spread.
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