Using Social Media and Technology to Spread Awareness, Educate Patients, and Increase Vaccine Compliance

Current immunization recommendations are one of the most effective ways to ensure public health and prevent disease. Record keeping and effective scheduling in a fragmented healthcare system is challenging for healthcare providers and the public alike. Additionally, an expansive anti-vaccination movement has gained significant momentum and pockets of vaccine preventable diseases are being discovered among areas with high immunization refusal rates. VaxNation is a tool developed by medical and public health students to assist users in maintaining and keeping track of their vaccination records. Additionally, VaxNation addresses the growing misinformation about immunizations through a viral education component. Through an integrated viral network that encompasses smart phones, social media, and online campaigning, VaxNation works to raise vaccine compliance and dispel misconceptions about immunizations. The VaxNation vaccination tracker provides a personalized schedule and record keeper including an automated reminder function that notifies users when an upcoming immunization is recommended accompanied with a clinic locator function. The education component is supplemented as users are presented with a variety of immunization statistics and information showing some of the alarming vaccination rates in the local, state or national region using the CDC Health Indicators Warehouse Data. The interface is integrated with Facebook so that users can directly log in to their account and easily share statistics and information they discover on the website. Using referral code tracking, users can monitor their social media impact and see which communities they are affecting. VaxNation is now hosted on a webserver and the website is available at http://www.vaxnation.org/.