Ontario’s Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) reported recently that fewer Canadian children are getting the immunizations they need, putting themselves and others at much greater risk of contracting and spreading vaccine-preventable diseases. Interestingly immigrant children’s vaccination rates are better.

The study, Immunization Coverage Among Young Children of Urban Immigrant Mothers: Findings from a Universal Healthcare System, is in the May 2008 issue of Ambulatory Pediatrics.

• Dr. Astrid Guttman, MDCM, MSc, FRCPC
  Scientist, Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES, G Wing, Sunnybrook Hospital) Staff Physician, Hospital for Sick Children and Assistant Professor of Paediatrics and Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto