This type of flu prevention is unconventional, but Brunswick officials said there is method to their madness - Brunswick County residents like to vote early and they need to get vaccinated. To Brunswick, the perfect solution was the “Vote & Vax” model.
“Vote & Vax”, a national project sponsored by the Sickness Prevention Achieved through Regional Collaboration, SPARC, delivered 21,434 influenza vaccinations at 331 locations in 42 states including the District of Columbia during the 2008 election. Douglas Shenson, director of “Vote & Vax” and president of SPARC, said he wants the “Vote & Vax” model to become a routine part of public practice. “Vote &Vax” does not handle any money or vaccines. They just help communities and organizations set up vaccination clinics on polling days to administer as much vaccine as possible.
Huey Marshall, county attorney and public information officer, said a majority of the residents in Brunswick County fall near the high-risk age bracket for influenza, and the large majority of this group registers for early voting. The Brunswick County Health Department and Board of Elections decided to appeal directly to the majority.
With the success of “Vote & Vax” in the past elections, Brunswick officials thought they had a good shot at administering large amounts of the vaccine, David Stanley, director of health and human services, said. “We just tailored it to our needs a little bit.”
According to Stanley, it was a success. The county gave out 200 shots over a one day period at three different polling locations between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. The county gives out 6,000 flu shots a year, but with a population of 100,000 Brunswick County does have some room for improvement, but as Stanley put it, even with a small number of vaccinations they are still fighting the flu.
Although this new project was innovative, the board of elections had some reservations.
“Their major concern was that nothing be compromised,” Marshall said, “and it wasn’t. We knew that both processes were very important to keep correct records of, so we kept impeccable records.”
County officials made sure to place vaccination clinics either completely outside of the voting precinct, before the entrance to the precinct, or placed so voters could approach the clinic after voting.
Dealing with election boards is something “Vote & Vax” helps organizations with because of these concerns. Shenson said this can be one of the most difficult parts of setting up this kind of outreach.
“What they usually don’t have experience with is working with their local election authority,” Shenson said. “We sort of hold their hand through that.”
In Brunswick, though, the elections board liked the health department’s plan, and there was very little resistance. The health department and Greg Malley, director of elections, worked closely together on the project to ensure everything ran smoothly. Malley said it was great to work with another department in the county, and he looks forward to putting on the event next season. On his end, Malley said there were no complaints from the voters, and the medical professionals followed all of the board’s requests.
While the county chose the early voting time frame because of the amount of voters registered, a set back to the plan was the coming threat of flu season.
“The beginning of flu season keeps moving up every year, so if we wait too late that is a concern,” Stanley said. The county wanted to make sure residents can rely on them to provide vaccinations conveniently when they need them, but also wanted to administer the vaccine early on as possible. This was another reason why the early voting date was chosen.
Brunswick plans on working with “Vote & Vax” during this coming election season again to administer the flu vaccine and is hoping for a large turn-out even without a presidential ballot.
