School Kit Materials

About the School Kit

The school kit is a comprehensive collection of information, best practices, and lessons learned from health departments working with schools to conduct school-located influenza immunization clinics. Each link leads to resources for addressing that particular topic.

Health departments can use this dynamic repository to build their own school-located influenza immunization programs, connect with colleagues, and share what works and what does not. The school kit does not have all the answers to all the questions and some topic areas are empty when there is insufficient experience. As more programs are conducted, we anticipate that the school kit will continue to expand.

Rationale for School-Located Influenza Immunization

Now that annual influenza immunization has been recommended for all children from six months to 18 years of age, multiple approaches are necessary to ensure adequate influenza vaccination coverage among this expanded population.

As the private sector and medical home have limited capacities to deliver influenza vaccine to this expanded population, school-located immunization offers potential advantages and benefits, such as:

• Improved efficiency and cost saving from a public health perspective;
• Increased access to students who are from minority groups, are economically disadvantaged, and/or are from families whose primary language is other than English; and
• Reduced absenteeism, for both vaccinated and unvaccinated students.

School Kit Development

Local health departments (LHDs) have started to partner with schools and lead the efforts for organizing and implementing school-located influenza immunization programs. To support these efforts, NACCHO convened an in-person workgroup meeting of exemplary state and local health departments engaged in these activities. Participants presented their jurisdictions’ experiences with providing school-located influenza vaccinations, highlighted key lessons learned, and discussed evaluation results of their activities.

School Kit Items Include:

• Background literature and reference documents;
• Checklists, workplans, consent forms, letters to parents, and assessment/evaluation tools; and
• General immunization program materials that are readily adapted to school-located influenza immunization programs.

How to Use the School Kit:

The resources included in this school kit are organized in chapters by topic area. These chapters can be used independently or as a part of the school kit as a whole. Most of the items listed in the individual chapters contain linked resources, others highlight topics to be considered during each of the stages of school-located influenza immunization clinic planning, implementation and evaluation.

On August 11, 2009, NACCHO hosted the School-Located Influenza Immunization for Local Health Departments webinar to provide background information on school-located influenza vaccination and present experiences of two LHDs that have implemented these programs. This webinar may provide helpful context prior to using the school kit.

This school kit is a "living" document and additional resources can be added at any time. If you have resources to share with the school kit, please e-mail Paul Etkind at petkind@naccho.org or Lilly Kan at lkan@naccho.org.