Most adults understand the importance of childhood immunizations; however, they may not realize that adults also need to receive vaccines. Pinar Keskinocak, associate professor in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE), co-director of the Health and Humanitarian Logistics Center, and associate director for research of the Health Systems Institute at Georgia Tech, and ISyE Ph.D. student Hannah Smalley have worked in collaboration with Dr. Larry Pickering, Shilpa Kottakapu, and Cathy Hogan from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to create the newly released Adult Immunization Scheduler. The Adult Scheduler is a free resource and is available from CDC's website.

A companion to the Childhood Catch-Up Immunization Scheduler (http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/index.html), another CDC/ISyE collaboration released in 2008 for children through six years of age, the Adult Scheduler is a downloadable application for people nineteen years of age or older. From information such as birth date and gender, underlying medical conditions, past vaccine doses and approximate dates, the scheduling tool generates a concise printout that lists doses needed to catch up to current vaccine recommendations. The printout also shows dates for future doses that will ensure long-term protection. The scheduler can be downloaded onto a personal computer, at which time entered data can be stored.

Many adults are unaware of recently licensed vaccines, such as shingles and HPV, that can protect them from disease. Most adults do not realize that getting a booster dose of Tdap can protect them and help protect infants and children from pertussis, commonly known as whooping cough.

Updates will be incorporated into the tool when CDC recommendations change. Users of the Adult Scheduler can sign up for "e-mail updates" to ensure they are notified when there are changes to the adult recommended immunization schedule.

The adult vaccine scheduling work was supported in part by a seed grant from the Health Systems Institute at Georgia Tech.