658: Avian Flu Symposium Takeaways, Adolescent Immunization Toolkit

JANSON SILVERS: 

This is the award-winning Public Health Review Morning Edition for Monday, May 6, 2024. I'm Janson Silvers. Now, today's news from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

MARCUS PLESCIA: 

It really was encouraging and heartening at what a good response we got from the field. We were at almost a maximum capacity, which would have been 3000 participants.

SILVERS: 

ASTHO's Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Marcus Plescia, says 1000s of public health professionals attended ASTHO's recent avian flu symposium Plescia authored a blog article on the takeaways from the two and a half hour symposium.

PLESCIA: 

I think the symposium and this whole issue we're dealing with avian influenza really brought home how much more we need to focus on that and be building those relationships and bringing that One Health, it's a good name, that One Health component to the table.

SILVERS: 

One of those takeaways was the assurance of preparedness across the board.

PLESCIA: 

We don't have vaccines sitting in the waiting. That's just not possible to do. But we have the ability to make a vaccine that everybody is confident we could make one and make one quickly. And then some of the speakers walk through what that would entail. And it seems like we could be very quick to have vaccine out if we needed to start vaccinating.

SILVERS: 

While that's great news Plescia still urges health leaders and their departments to take stock of how they can respond if necessary.

PLESCIA: 

You know, you're ready, if you had to scale up and do more lab testing. Are you ready, if we started to see a lot of cases and people were starting to be in the hospital? You know, our greatest fear is always that we could overcome hospital capacity. So are you know, are you thinking about that? Are you trying to be as ready as possible in case that didn't happen?

SILVERS: 

Read more of the highlights from the avian flu symposium and Plescia's full article, a link is in the show notes.

Adolescent vaccination numbers continue to lag and leaders are working to rectify immunization rates for certain adolescent vaccines. Katelyn Wells with the Association of Immunization Managers says one of the reasons they created an adolescent immunization toolkit is because so many people in the field are so new.

KATELYN WELLS: 

So, for example, just for our members, 63% of them are new since the beginning of the pandemic, so they don't know what a normal quote unquote immunization program is. So, really looking at what was done before, those tride and true tested practices. Learning from those practices is the goal here.

SILVERS: 

The goal of the toolkit is to improve the delivery of vaccinations throughout adolescence.

WELLS: 

Now, this guide features over 27 promising practices from state, local, and territorial immunization programs, which are really presented in a way to share lessons learned so their fellow immunization programs can adopt, adapt, or use as inspiration in their planning or brainstorming exercises.

SILVERS: 

Well says the toolkit is organized into three different levels of activities to meet immunization programs where they are in terms of resources and staff, there is a level to help get started and additional levels to move forward.

WELLS: 

And then we have the moving forward level which are activities that are more expansive in their purpose and scope and often leverage relationships partner organizations and require some staffing and then the highest level, taking it to the next level, which are activities that have greater complexity built on earlier efforts or leverage existing infrastructure and often include multiple partners and require considerable staffing and funding.

SILVERS: 

You can access the Adolescent Immunization Toolkit by using the link in the show notes.

Also today, ASTHO's 2024 Legislative Perspective Series can be a valuable resource for you and your team. ASTHO's policy experts have released the top 10 public health policy trends to watch throughout the 2024 legislative session. Topics include data modernization, substance misuse, and reproductive health. ASTHO will also be providing a mid-session update later this month. You can find the link to the legislative perspective in the show notes.

Finally this morning, ASTHO's Public Health Weekly email newsletter is an easy way to stay connected to everything public health. Signing up is simple. Use the link in the show notes and get the news you need delivered straight to your inbox.

That'll do it for today. We're back tomorrow morning with more ASTHO news and information. I'm Janson Silvers. You're listening to the award-winning Public Health Review Morning Edition. Have a great day.