Intermountain Press Release

Salt Lake City —The Salt Lake Valley Health Department and Intermountain Healthcare today announced a new partnership to immunize 11,000 uninsured children ages 0 to 2 years old. This initiative is the largest childhood immunization project ever implemented in Salt Lake County.

To help fund the program, Salt Lake County dedicated $400,000 to the project.

"I can tell you honestly that no priority was higher on my list of 2007 budget recommendations than the health department's child immunization program," Mayor Corroon said. "The fact that nearly one third of our children in Salt Lake County are not adequately vaccinated is a problem we must aggressively address."

In addition to the County's support, Intermountain Healthcare stepped up by contributing $100,000 to help support the childhood immunization initiative. As Utah's flagship healthcare organization, Intermountain has a long history of partnering with government organizations to support childhood health initiatives. Other Intermountain supported childhood health initiatives include the Gold Medal Schools program, Baby Your Baby, Spot the Tot, Hold on to Dear Life, Immunize by Two, and a new series of public service announcement called LiVe that address childhood fitness.

"No child in our community should suffer from the devastating effects of a disease that can be prevented through vaccination," said Bill Nelson, Intermountain Healthcare's president. "It is important for the whole community to come together to support community-wide vaccination."

Unnecessary suffering and the potential death of unvaccinated children is a devastating cost, but is not the only expense. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control, for each dollar spent on vaccination, $8 is saved in future healthcare costs. When patients are uninsured those healthcare costs are passed on to the larger community.

In explaining some of the nuts and bolts of the project, Audrey Stevenson, SLVHD Family Health Services Director explained that in addition to ensuring that the 11,000 children receiving WIC services become fully immunized, the Health Department will also distribute vouchers to regular physicians, pediatricians and private healthcare providers in the community. Physicians can give vouchers to any of their clients who are unable to pay for needed vaccinations.

SLVHD chose to make the announcement as an early celebration of the 2007 National Infant Immunization Week, which is April 21-28.