Welcome to the School Page of StartwithFour!

Through our research, focus groups and surveys, we learned a number of things:

1. Students look for health information on the internet.
2. Students and parents want their primary care providers to discuss immunizations with them but they value similar discussions with their school nurses.
3. Much of the information about immunizations is located in multiple sites that have many pages of information. Many studies show that internet users want to access the information sought in the first or second page of a website.
4. In our global world, any child is just one plane ride away from getting a disease that is no longer present in the United States, making immunizations as important as ever.

Because of this information, we have developed this one comprehensive website to provide easily accessible information for adolescents and their parents. We also wanted to provide some tools for school districts to use to increase their immunization rates. The home page and Q & A page were designed by teens for teens. The rest has been developed by the St. Louis Immunization Coalition’s MO Adolescent Immunization Outreach Initiative Committee, a program of the Maternal, Child and Family Health Coalition.

Four Tools for Schools

1. Banners – These banners can be downloaded to your school’s or district’s home pages to promote adolescent immunizations, especially when you want to encourage compliance with back-to-school immunization efforts. But remember, since so many of the immunizations have advanced, immunizations can be given and encouraged year round.
2. News Articles – These articles can be used in parent newsletters, school or district web pages. http://www.immunize.org/reports/
3. Informational Mailers – These can help remind families of the importance of immunizations for healthy school participation. http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/spec-grps/preteens-adol/prof-matls/state-materials.htm
4. Resource Section – The section below provides schools and districts with additional information about immunization clinics/sites; the most current immunization information and updates; and parent resources.

Four Resources

1. Comprehensive immunization information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
   
2. National Network for Immunization Information
   
3. IAC Express – Immunization news from the Immunization Action Coalition
   
4. The following organizations provide immunization services:
   
   • Laboratory Collection Services
   • Maxim Health Systems
   • Passport Health
   • Community Services at St. Louis Visiting Nurse Association

Please visit the Clinics page to find a listing of Federally Qualified Health Clinics and St. Louis County health clinics: (Please check with each about immunizations available at their site).

Four Information Sheets

Vaccine Information Sheets from the CDC on each of the four immunizations: (PDF Files)

Tdap
Flu – Intranasal
Flu – Injectable
Meningitis
HPV

Four Resources for Parents about Vaccine Safety

There has been a lot of misinformation in the entertainment media and on the internet that is confusing parents about vaccine safety. You may find the following sites useful as reliable resources.

• http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/basic/parents.htm
• http://www.chop.edu/consumer/jsp/division/generic.jsp?id=75743
• http://www.immunize.org/safety/ - Other links and resources
• http://www.aap.org/advocacy/releases/autismparentfacts.htm