National Immunization Awareness Month

National Immunization Awareness Month (NIAM) is an annual event in August that highlights the importance of staying up to date on recommended vaccinations so that everyone can have the chance to live healthier lives protected against preventable diseases.

Pharmacists are highly trusted and accessible health-care providers who have a critical role to play in raising public awareness about the importance of immunization and reaching patients in their communities.

Here’s a collection of some of the immunization-related resources we have available:

CPhA Learning: Immunization and Travel Health

CPhA Learning offers continuing professional development opportunities to support pharmacists in delivering immunization services—from staying up to date on evolving guidelines and identifying high-risk patients to integrating vaccination services into workflow and providing travel health consultations.

Improving the childhood vaccination experience

Whether you’re administering vaccines in your pharmacy or helping parents and kids understand the benefits of immunization, there’s lots of information to wade through.

Resource Round-up: Our Resource Round-up: Childhood vaccination compiles a bunch of resources that can help you improve the childhood vaccination experience.
CARD: The CARD (comfort, ask, relax, distract) system provides strategies that can be used to help patients of all ages cope before and during vaccination. The Canadian Pharmacists Journal featured the CARD system in its January/February 2023 issue supplement.
CPS Full Access: Available with a CPS Full Access subscription, our chapter on Routine Childhood Vaccinations provides information on essential vaccines and offers strategies for reducing pain during vaccinations. The chapter also includes a valuable infographic, “Childhood Vaccinations – Frequently Asked Questions by Canadian Parents and Caregivers,” specifically crafted to help address vaccine hesitancy among parents and caregivers.

Measles: What you need to know

With measles re-emerging in Canada and globally, pharmacy professionals are getting more questions at the pharmacy counter about symptoms, prevention and vaccination. Refresh your measles knowledge with CPhA’s fact sheet, Measles: What you need to know, designed to help support your conversations with your patients.

Pharmacists' vaccination authority across Canada

From COVID-19 vaccines and flu shots to routine immunizations and travel vaccines, most pharmacists are authorized to prescribe and administer a broad range of vaccines. As highlighted through our Pharmacists CAN campaign, pharmacists are helping improve access to care in communities across Canada—although authority and public funding for pharmacist-administered vaccines still vary by jurisdiction. Here’s an overview of the vaccines and injections pharmacists are authorized to administer across Canada.

Pharmacist Q&As

As part of our Pharmacy Check-in Series, CPhA caught up with a few Canadian pharmacists to hear about their practices and the important role pharmacists play in vaccinating their communities.

Jaelee Guenther