[Current Immunization Status of Düsseldorf's Nursery School Children and Staff Members: A Cross-Sectional Study]. / Impfstatus von Kindern und Erzieher(innen) in Kindertageseinrichtungen der Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf ­ Querschnittsstudie.

BACKGROUND: The local health authority (Gesundheitsamt) in Düsseldorf, Germany aimed to investigate the current immunization status of nursery school children and pedagogues in Düsseldorf, Germany. Furthermore, analysing the association between Düsseldorf's 5 social environment clusters and immunization status was of interest. Especially due to recent changes in the German Infection Protection Act closely monitoring adverse immunization trends becomes increasingly important. METHODS: Weighted cluster random sampling was used in order to draw a sample of 50 nursery schools from the 5 social environment clusters. Questionnaires were sent to the nursery schools and data were subsequently analysed using descriptive statistics. RESULTS: The results indicate that 76.0% of the children were immunized in time against MMR, 68.2% against varicella and 75.4% against meningococcal serogroup C. Data indicated a higher number of immunized children among older age groups. 96.4% of staff members born after 1970 were not vaccinated against varicella, 17.9% were not immunized against MMR and 82.1% were not vaccinated against meningococcal serogroup C. CONCLUSION: Immunization rates of children in nursery schools in Düsseldorf are far lower compared to local, federal and nationwide data of children's school entrance health examination. Especially in nursery schools that care for children younger than 12 months, herd immunity is crucial. Therefore, administering vaccines with a delay is considered to be precarious. Due to low response rates, inferential statistics could not be used and conclusions about the staff members' data are limited.

Low-grade inflammation, obesity, and insulin resistance in adolescents.

CONTEXT: Low-grade inflammation is associated with insulin resistance and precedes the onset of type 2 diabetes mellitus in adults, but there are no comparable data in youth. OBJECTIVE: The objective of the study was to characterize the pattern of subclinical immune activation that is associated with indices of obesity and insulin resistance in youth and analyze whether this association is explained by obesity. DESIGN: This was a cross-sectional study. SETTING: Medical check-up of schoolchildren was conducted by the Public Health Office in Düsseldorf (Germany). PARTICIPANTS: Participants included 519 adolescents (mean age 15.5 +/- 0.8 yr). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Measures included body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC) as indices of obesity; fasting glucose, insulin, and homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance; serum concentrations of TNFalpha, IL-6, IL-8, IL-18, monocyte chemoattractant protein-1, interferon-gamma-inducible protein (IP)-10 and adiponectin as immunological variables. RESULTS: In age-, sex-, and lipid-adjusted analyses, IL-6, IL-18, IP-10, and adiponectin (inversely) were associated with both BMI and WC (all P