The Impact of Educational Efforts on First-Year University Students' Acceptance of Meningococcal Vaccine

Abstract

The authors measured the impact of educational efforts on the number of college students who received meningococcal vaccine. First-year Brown University students from the classes of 2004 (n = 1,562) and 2005 (n = 1,518) received educational vaccine materials before they arrived on campus, whereas students from the class of 2003 (n = 1,441) did not. Students in the class of 2003, 13% (n = 184) of whom had received vaccine before their arrival on campus, served as the baseline. These educational efforts by the college health services before students arrived on campus increased the number of students immunized before campus arrival to 46% (n = 724) for the class of 2004, and 60% (n = 913) for the class of 2005. Education about the benefits of meningococcal vaccine before students' arrival on campus increased both the number of immunized students and the overall immunization rate among students.