Evaluation of telephoned computer-generated reminders to improve immunization coverage at inner-city clinics.

The authors evaluated the effectiveness of computer-generated telephoned reminders used to raise the rates of on-time immunization among preschool-age children in two public clinics in Atlanta- GA. The overall effect of the intervention on immunization levels appeared to be minimal (crude relative risk = 1.07- 95 percent confidence interval = 0.78- 1.46)- in part because only about 80 percent of children in both the randomly selected intervention group and in the control group were members of a household with a telephone number listed in clinic records. However- logistic regression analysis indicated that 36 of 68 children (52.9 percent) in the intervention group whose households were reached were vaccinated within 30 days of their due dates- compared to 31 of 75 children (41.3 percent) in the control group whose household telephone numbers were recorded but not called (adjusted odds ratio = 2.12- 95 percent confidence interval = 1.01- 4.46). This analysis indicates that telephoned reminders demonstrated a le