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Children's Immunization Improvement Program Receives PhRMA 2013 Research & Hope Award

Children's Immunization Improvement Program Receives PhRMA 2013 Research & Hope Award

Washington, DC—Children’s National Medical Center's Immunization Improvement Program, of the Diana L. and Stephen A. Goldberg Center for Community Pediatric Health, has received the 2013 Research & Hope Award for Patient and Community Health from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), for increasing awareness of the importance of childhood immunization  and for raising the quality of immunization delivery to an at-risk population in the District of Columbia.

Linda Fu, MD, MS, a faculty member in General and Community Pediatrics and a Principal Investigator for the Children’s Research Institute at Children’s National, leads the Immunization Improvement research team and was recognized for her achievements.

PhRMA, which is based in Washington, DC, noted in its recognition, “This program has ensured that a generation of children in our region is protected from a wide range of preventable diseases. Additionally, ongoing work at the Children’s Research Institute and through the Goldberg Center for Community Pediatric Health, exemplifies the continuum of scientific study, clinical practice and stakeholder engagement that PhRMA strives to highlight through the Research & Hope Awards.”

The 2013 Research & Hope Awards showcased the history, progress, challenges, and future of vaccines. The award presentation on September 11 in Washington, DC, featured a keynote by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Tom Frieden, MD, MPH.

“I applaud Dr. Fu and the rest of the team on this acknowledgment of their work to motivate more practitioners to follow the CDC’s recommended interventions to boost immunization rates,” said Denice Cora-Bramble, MD, Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of Ambulatory and Community Health Services. “Our program at Children’s National improved the immunization compliance rates of our target population from 71 percent to 87 percent, which we have sustained over several years. This translates into thousands more children locally being protected against vaccine-preventable diseases. Finding strategies that help other providers adopt these practices will help more children get the vaccines they need for a healthy start at life.”

In addition to her roles at Children’s National, Dr. Fu is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Her research and advocacy interests focus on reducing barriers to childhood immunizations. With the grant funding of PhRMA member, Pfizer, Inc., Dr. Fu is currently conducting research on how to effectively replicate Children’s Immunization Improvement Program successes among pediatric practices located throughout the United States. She is Principal Investigator of a multi-center behavioral trial being conducted in partnership with the American Academy of Pediatrics which compares strategies to enhance uptake among pediatricians of the CDC’s recommended practices to improve immunization delivery. In addition, she has received funding from the National Institutes of Health to study the influences of social networks on HPV vaccination acceptance among parents of early adolescents.

PhRMA represents the country’s leading innovative biopharmaceutical research and biotechnology companies, which are devoted to discovering and developing medicines that enable patients to live longer, healthier, and more productive lives. Since 2000, PhRMA member companies have invested approximately $550 billion in the search for new treatments and cures, including an estimated $48.5 billion in 2012 alone.



Contact: Emily Hartman or Paula Darte, 202-476-4500.