Parent’s Pack - From the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
“Given the outbreaks of measles and concerns about eroding community immunity, many adults are wondering if they, too, might need some vaccines. With that in mind, we thought we’d focus on a few specific vaccines.”
Measles
“Measles is a devastating virus. If a child gets measles, they might be hospitalized with pneumonia, dehydration or encephalitis (infection of the brain). Measles is no “walk in the park” for adults either. In fact, adults who get measles are more likely to be hospitalized and die if infected. Six people have died during the measles outbreak in Pennsylvania; most have occurred in unvaccinated adults.
So, how do you know if you might need to be vaccinated against measles?
Age-based considerations are most helpful here:
If you were born before 1957 and are not a healthcare worker, you likely have sufficient immunity to measles because most people born before that year had measles as a child. Because people in healthcare are more likely to be exposed and then potentially spread the virus to susceptible patients, birth year is not sufficient evidence of immunity for that group.
If you were born between 1957 and 1968, your history of illness or vaccination may be more questionable, and there was an inactivated measles vaccine used between 1963 and 1967 that didn’t work well, so you may want to get at least one dose of the MMR vaccine if you don’t have clear documentation of measles illness or vaccination. As a reminder, while a second dose of measles vaccine is likely to boost a person’s immunity, the main goal of the second dose is to improve the number of people who are protected. One dose protects about 93 to 95 of 100 people, and two doses increase that to about 97 to 99 of 100 people. Given that you lived at a time when disease was still circulating and you may have been vaccinated or infected, one dose is usually considered sufficient.
If you were born between 1968 and 1989, you likely had a single dose of vaccine, but you can consider getting a dose of MMR vaccine if you can’t find an old immunization record documenting such or if you are concerned that you might have been one of the handful of people out of every 100 that didn’t develop an immune response to the first dose.
Starting in 1990, the recommendation was for two doses of measles-containing vaccine, so if you were born in the 1990s or 2000s, you likely received two doses if you were vaccinated. Again, if you cannot find a vaccination record and are concerned you may not have been vaccinated, you could reasonably get one dose of MMR vaccine.
Dr. Paul Offit, VEC director, recently discussed measles vaccination of adults.
Watch Video: “Measles in Adults: How to Protect Yourself.”
Polio
While we don’t often hear about cases of polio in the U.S., in 2022 an unvaccinated 27-year-old in New York was paralyzed after being infected with the virus. This led some adults to wonder about their own vaccination status.
So, how do you know if you might need to be vaccinated against polio?
Most adults have been vaccinated against polio; however, two situations warrant consideration of vaccination status:
If you think you were not vaccinated as a child or if you think you had fewer than three doses, you should get one to three doses, depending on how many doses you are known to have received as a child. The three doses will take at least seven months to complete since dose two should be at least four weeks after the first dose and dose three should be six to 12 months after dose two.
If you know you were vaccinated as a child, but you are concerned that you may be at increased risk for exposure to polio, you can get one booster dose.
One note about polio vaccination is that between 1961 and 1996, children in the U.S. received the oral polio vaccine (OPV), so they have protection both at the intestinal surface and in their bloodstream. Since 1996, the U.S. has used the inactivated polio vaccine (IPV). Protection from that vaccine only occurs in the bloodstream, so these individuals could still experience an intestinal infection and excrete polio virus in their feces. They are, however, protected against severe infection and paralysis. This change was made because the likelihood for exposure to the virus was low and the oral polio vaccine occasionally caused paralysis, so the risk was removed by switching to the inactivated polio vaccine.”
For more information, watch this video: “The 2022 NY Polio Case: Why and What Does it Mean?”
Read the Complete Article (covering other vaccines).
Article Source: The Parent’s Pack, November, 2026 Newsletter (that includes additional information) from the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Published with permission. 2026