Champions for School Health-An NASN Initiative to Increase Vaccine Confidence, Equity, and Uptake in COVID-19 and School-Required Vaccinations: Part 1.

The National Association of School Nurses (NASN) received a U.S.$2 million grant from Kaiser Permanente in January 2022 to increase confidence, equity, and uptake in the COVID-19 vaccine and other school required vaccinations in children ages 5 to 11 in Kaiser's nine markets (eight states and the District of Columbia). NASN was partnered with the Institute of Educational Leadership (IEL) in this initiative to examine ways both organizations could learn how school nurses (SNs) and community schools (CSs) could collaborate to address the goals of this project. NASN gave 54 Implementation Grants in two funding cycles in 2022 and is co-funding two SN-CS collaboration projects with IEL. The Part 1 article provides an overview of the project's goals, grant strategy and processes, grantee information, NASN created tools that resulted from this funding, and successful implementation of the project, which demonstrates NASN's capacity for future similar projects.

Contraception Recommendations: Updates for the Busy Clinician

Primary care clinicians are an important source of reproductive health care for their patients. Knowledge of contraception methods is essential to informed patient-centered decision-making about contraceptive options

Post-authorization surveillance of adverse events following COVID-19 vaccines in pregnant persons in the vaccine adverse event reporting system (VAERS), December 2020 - October 2021.

BACKGROUND: Pregnant persons are at increased risk of severe illness from COVID-19 infection, including intensive care unit admission, mechanical ventilation, and death compared with non-pregnant persons of reproductive age. Limited data are available on the safety of COVID-19 vaccines administered during and around the time of pregnancy. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate and summarize reports to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), a national spontaneous reporting system, in pregnant persons who received a COVID-19 vaccine to assess for potential vaccine safety problems. METHODS: We searched VAERS for US reports of adverse events (AEs) in pregnant persons who received a COVID-19 vaccine from 12/14/2020-10/31/2021. Clinicians reviewed reports and available medical records. Crude reporting rates for selected AEs were calculated, and disproportional reporting was assessed using data mining methods. RESULTS: VAERS received 3,462 reports of AEs in pregnant persons who received a COVID-19 vaccine; 1,831 (52.9%) after BNT162b2, 1,350 (38.9%) after mRNA-1273, and 275 (7.9%) after Ad26.COV2.S. Eight maternal deaths and 12 neonatal deaths were reported. Six-hundred twenty-one (17.9%) reports were serious. Pregnancy-specific outcomes included: 878 spontaneous abortions (<20 weeks), 101 episodes of vaginal bleeding, 76 preterm deliveries (<37 weeks), 62 stillbirths (≥20 weeks), and 33 outcomes with birth defects. Crude reporting rates for preterm deliveries and stillbirths, as well as maternal and neonatal mortality rates were below background rates from published sources. No disproportional reporting for any AE was observed. CONCLUSIONS: Review of reports to VAERS following COVID-19 vaccines in pregnant persons did not identify any concerning patterns of maternal or infant-fetal outcomes.

Coronavirus Disease 2019.

In this article, the authors review manifestations of COVID-19 in older adults, normal physiologic changes and frequent comorbidities of aging that increase pathogenicity, factors contributing to overwhelming viral spread among seniors, negative effects on health and well-being resulting from measures to control the virus, and health-system improvements necessary to protect and care for this vulnerable population.