[Knowledge, attitude, and practice concerning measles vaccination. Approaches for national vaccination education]

Achievement of the goal to eliminate measles by 2015 set by the European region of the World Health Organization (WHO) necessitates an increase in the willingness of German nationals to get vaccinated. To identify influential factors on vaccination behavior as the basis for communication measures specific to target groups, the Federal Centre for Health Education (BZgA) has conducted two representative surveys on attitude, knowledge, and practice concerning vaccination among parents of children between 0 and 13 years as well as among adolescents and adults. The parents' survey (n = 3,002) revealed that more than one-third see measles as a harmless disease. The survey of adolescents and adults (n = 4,483, 16-85 years) also shows that about one-quarter of the interviewees between 16 and 44 years regarded vaccination against measles as not very important. Moreover, 81 % of adults born after 1970 without sufficient existing vaccine protection were not aware of the new measles vaccination recommendation for this age group. Personal consultation with the physician was regarded as the major source of vaccination information in both surveys. About half of all persons interviewed intended to obtain information about vaccinations on the Internet. The results of these studies were used for the development of a nationwide multilevel BZgA campaign on vaccination protection against measles, its goal being to support medical professionals with comprehensive information and to enable adolescents and young adults via different communication measures to make well-informed vaccination decisions.