Recent numbers posted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveal that nationwide childhood vaccination rates have continued a downward trend, with some states faring better than others.
To learn more about how community health workers can leverage real-time lessons from back-to-school season into the fall, Public Good News talked with Andrea Romero, manager of the New Mexico Department of Health’s immunization program.
Romero shared why it’s important to engage people across generations through focused messaging strategies.
Here’s more of what Romero said.
[Editor’s note: The contents of this interview have been edited for length and clarity.]
Public Good News: Can you talk to us about your state’s school vaccine coverage ahead of New Mexico heading back to school this week?
Andrea Romero: Yeah, so with New Mexico we are in pretty good shape. Our kindergartner coverage is still in the 90 percent area—like between 93 to 95 percent.
We also conducted a seventh grade survey just to see what that looks like. In those students, we see more of mid-to-upper 90s percentage coverage.
The school survey is conducted at the beginning of the school year, starting from September through December, to see if students are up to date.
Now, with those efforts, we are able to know more about what’s keeping kids from being caught up on vaccines. What we’ve known from the past couple of years is that there are parents that face barriers with transportation, getting an appointment, or who can’t get out of work.
In response, since the pandemic, our mobile vaccine unit has provided access to our underserved areas in the state and to our large rural population as well.
There’s a lot of desert in New Mexico, and maybe there’s not an immediate provider in their town, or they have to travel a long way.
We have also made our mobile vaccine team a Vaccines for Children provider. And so, with those efforts, we are able to partner with schools or at community events to assist families. For those that need to get vaccines, [we provide] catch-up access prior to getting back into school.
PGN: Neighboring states like Texas have been particularly hard hit by measles. What’s the situation like in New Mexico?
A.R.: As of August 13, we’re at 97 cases.
At the Department of Health, we’ve had a hotline since the COVID-19 pandemic, where the public can have direct access to a nurse to ask questions, get guidance, and [get] recommendations if they have symptoms.
As soon as there was a declared measles outbreak announced, many people called our nurse hotline. Knowing that they can have access to information about vaccines and their vaccine status—because there were really a lot of the questions that came through immediately—resulted in an increase of vaccine uptake in the state.
So, having that direct access again is a high priority for us, because people get worried and they have questions.
PGN: Have you tried any new or different strategies this year?
A.R.: Annually, statewide, we do what we call “Got Shots?” clinics. We’ve been doing these clinics in collaboration with our New Mexico Immunization Coalition since 2007, where we provide vaccines after hours and on the weekends to help parents that may have tight schedules. Specifically this year, we opened up the clinics to last longer.
We have 69 providers participating this year with events going all the way through the end of August to help families that need to get caught up in time for school registration and helping those that don’t have an immediate provider.
That’s another thing: So with these clinics, they open their doors for all children. You don’t have to be a patient with them. And there is no cost for children’s vaccines.
PGN: What’s been helping you talk to your community?
A.R.: We know there has been some vaccine burnout after the pandemic, so we thought this would be a good opportunity to go back to basics to explain what a vaccine is. What it protects you from.
And really going through what the schedule is and reminding folks of different diseases that are out there. How you could prevent, especially your children, from getting any of these.
[In our state, we’ve seen] cases of whooping cough being doubled and, of course, measles, so adding more emphasis on those diseases where we’re seeing cases happening and utilizing a storytelling approach.
PGN: Can you share more about what that approach is?
A.R.: We have a great senior population here. A lot of those people are grandparents, who of course have influence on their grandchildren and want to protect their grandchildren.
We hear their stories of when they survived an outbreak or maybe when their parents survived an outbreak, and what it was like. Because what we have seen as part of our back-to-basics approach is a generational gap.
There’s a generation who maybe know of COVID-19, but they don’t know of polio.
They didn’t live through the other measles outbreaks that happened that had a severe impact. So, having that storytelling from seniors hits to the heart.
[Their stories] remind us that vaccines were created to prevent these illnesses from happening and spreading and, of course, to prevent deaths.
So, we feel like these trusted voices have been a really high priority, and having a storytelling approach is really impactful.