Publications by authors named "Elizabeth Sobczyk"

A panel of 24 international experts met in July 2022 to discuss challenges associated with pertussis detection, monitoring, and vaccination in adults; conclusions from this meeting are presented. There has been a shift in the epidemiology of pertussis toward older children and adults. This shift has been attributed to the waning of infection- or vaccine-induced immunity, newer detection techniques causing detection bias, and possibly the replacement of whole-cell pertussis with acellular vaccines in high-income countries, which may lead to immunity waning more quickly.

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Article Synopsis
  • Pertussis, also known as whooping cough, is infecting more older children and adults, which is causing problems for health care and people's quality of life.
  • There is a plan to improve vaccination to protect everyone, but we don't have enough information about how effective adult vaccines are or how often adults actually get pertussis.
  • To make better decisions about adult vaccinations, we need more data about how common pertussis is in adults, why some people skip vaccines, and how well the vaccines work over time.
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  • The CDC funded a wide network of 1,161 partners (110 primary and 1,051 subrecipients) across the U.S. to enhance COVID-19 vaccination efforts between March 2021 and December 2022, focusing on marginalized communities and various high-risk groups.
  • These partners used evidence-based strategies and created innovative partnerships (like with libraries and museums) to boost vaccine access and confidence through community outreach in diverse settings.
  • Over 295,000 trusted messengers were trained, over 2.1 million vaccinations were given, and significant improvements were made in healthcare systems to better incorporate COVID-19 vaccine protocols.
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Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic vaccination campaigns globally have been unlike any effort in history. In the United States, the success of these efforts, in part, has hinged on the timely capture and reporting of an unprecedented amount of data from a significantly greater number of administering providers than for routine vaccinations. The pandemic response has highlighted the need to explore the status and value of vaccination data as the critical glue that connects all aspects of the upstream US vaccine development and downstream vaccination delivery system.

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Clinical decision support systems, which provide automated reminders in electronic health systems, are designed to provide physicians and other health professionals support in clinical decision-making. New clinical guidance from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices on a new category of recommendations referred to as "shared clinical decision-making" have left providers struggling to interpret how to best implement recommendations for adult vaccines. The issue at hand is how to ensure that a conversation between the patient and provider occurs.

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Introduction: Immunosenescence is a normal biologic process involving deterioration of protective immune responses. Consequently, older adults experience increased risk of infectious diseases, particularly pneumonia, and its leading bacterial cause, . Pneumococcal vaccine recommendations are often limited to adults with specific medical conditions despite similar disease risks among older adults due to immunosenescence.

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Objective: To understand the financial impact to providers for using a combination vaccine (Pediarix [GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals, King of Prussia, PA]) versus its equivalent component vaccines for children aged 1 year or younger.

Methods: Using a subscription remittance billing service offered to private-practice office-based physicians, we analyzed charge and payment information submitted by providers to insurance payers from June 2007 through July 2009. We analyzed provider and payer characteristics, payer comments, and the ratio of vaccine product to immunization administration (IA) codes and computed total charges and payments to providers for both arms of the study.

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