Progress in Development of Immunization Registries

Immunization registries are confidential, population-based, computerized information systems that attempt to collect vaccination data about all children within a geographic area.1 Registries are an important tool to increase and sustain high vaccination coverage by consolidating vaccination records of children from multiple providers, generating reminder and recall vaccination notices for each child, and providing official vaccination forms and vaccination coverage assessments. One of the national health objectives for 2010 is to increase to 95% the proportion of children aged <6 years who participate in fully operational population-based immunization registries (objective 14.26).2 To assess the status of immunization registry development, CDC analyzed self-reported data from 62 immunization grantees on the basis of data from the 2000 Immunization Registry Annual Report (IRAR). This report summarizes the results of this analysis, which indicate that approximately half of the grantees are operating population-based immunization registries that target their entire catchment areas; however, approximately 75% of children aged <6 years still need to be included in an immunization registry to reach the national health objective.