Welcome ... to CMA Alliance's Health Promotion Page for 2008-09.
The Health Committee plans to share "bits and bytes" of current health news and views: what's hot (and not), what's controversial, factual and fascinating --- and not only for YOU. Hopefully the monthly "byte bits" will be important enough to share with your County newsletter editors and Alliance friends.... And remember-- we're keeping a healthy balance in 2008!
Judy Corless, Health Promotion Chair 2008
The meeting was called by the Academy’s Executive Director, Errol Alden, MD, FAAP, in response to the #1 resolution from the Annual Leadership Forum, which resolved, “that the Academy lead the development of a coalition of health professional, public health, scientific and other organizations to develop a media campaign to market directly to parents the value of immunizations and the importance of child health recommendations based on credible scientific evidence.”
The group agreed that recent attacks on vaccines have left parents confused. The rates of exemptions are climbing, and the protection of communities from vaccine preventable diseases is in jeopardy.
Participants identified several factors that promote anti-vaccine information:
• Parent-to-parent spread of myths
• A public that does not understand the risk of vaccine-preventable diseases, • Internet and media exposure that is not balanced
• Decreased trust in the government and health care providers
• Slow response to negative news coverage
• Increasing calls for philosophical exemptions
The group recognized strategies that have worked in the past to address these drivers, agreed to jointly promote the positive value of vaccines, and will come together again in July to develop a cohesive message for dissemination.
This message will be disseminated in mainstream media, through professional organizations, and via Internet tools. Materials are expected to be available by fall 2008. The group will formally be known as the Immunization Alliance. The Alliance plans to continue to work together to address immunization issues as they emerge both now and in the future. More information will be in the July issue of /AAP News/. In order to support its members in the meantime, the Academy has developed several resources for parents and pediatricians posted on the CISP Web Site .