Objectives:

• To increase awareness of the seriousness of childhood diseases.
• To provide information and increase knowledge of how immunisations protect children from childhood diseases.
• To increase knowledge of the ages at which immunisations or booster vaccinations are given.
• To help answer parents' questions about immunisation.
• To motivate parents to get their children immunised.

Background:
The Agency has been producing public information campaigns on child immunisation, on behalf of the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety for several years. In 2001 a review of childhood immunisation materials was carried out and it was agreed that due to changes in the vaccination programme these needed revising and updating.

The campaign:
The revisions to materials included updating the booklet for parents
Protect your child - a guide for parents which focuses on vaccinations given to young children aged 2, 3 and 4 months and pre-school booster vaccinations given to children aged 4-5 years.

It was also agreed to replace the leaflet for 10-18 year olds with two separate resources. A new leaflet was created entitled BCG and tuberculosis. This provides information on the BCG vaccine usually given to 10-14 year olds at school. The second resource entitled Young people and immunisation deals with tetanus, diphtheria and polio boosters usually given in school to young people aged 14-18 years.

A poster promoting childhood immunisation was also produced and the guidance notes for health professionals were updated. Stickers were produced for health professionals to give to young children receiving immunisations. All the public information were pretested with parents and changes were made to the look and content of the resources based on this. The leaflets were translated into Arabic, Cantonese, Hindi, Irish and Urdu.

The revised materials were designed to complement the MMR materials that had been produced in March.