Summary

Vaccination coverage of Galveston County preschool children was assessed through a retrospective sample survey of students enrolled in kindergarten during the fall of 2003. These children were age 5 or 6 at the time of the survey and were two years of age in 1999-2000. Records were reviewed for 875 children in 26 schools. Using the Healthy People 2010 objective, the proportion of county children appropriately vaccinated by age 2 was 3.9 % higher in 1999-2000 than in the previous year but substantially lower than the national goal of 80%. Survey results indicate that 60.7 % of the children were adequately immunized with DTP4, polio3, MMR1, Hib3 and HB3 (4-3-1-3-3) by age 2. Compared to last year, increases in vaccination coverage were seen at all ages from 3 months through 5 years. This survey found 87.4 % of students adequately immunized (4-3-1-3-3) at age 5. Using the previous (Healthy People 2000) standard, the 2003 survey would show 66.5 % of 2-year-old and 94.5 % of 5-year-old children adequately immunized with DTP4, polio3 and MMR1 (4-3-1). These results reflect improvement of 25.3 % for 2-year-old children and 16.8 % for 5-year-olds since 1993