US college and university student health screening requirements for tuberculosis and vaccine-preventable diseases, 2012

ABSTRACT

Objective: Colleges are at risk for communicable disease outbreaks because of the high degree of person-to-person interactions and relatively crowded dormitory settings. This report describes the US college student health screening requirements among US resident and international students for tuberculosis (TB) and vaccine-preventable diseases (VPDs) as they relate to the American College Health Association (ACHA) guidelines. Methods/Participants: In April 2012, US college health administrators (N = 2,858) were sent online surveys to assess their respective school's TB screening and immunization requirements. Results: Surveys were completed by 308 (11%) schools. Most schools were aware of the ACHA immunization (78%) and TB screening (76%) guidelines. Schools reported having policies related to immunization screening (80.4%), immunization compliance (93%), TB screening (55%), and TB compliance (87%). Conclusion: Most colleges were following ACHA guidelines. However, there are opportunities for improvement to fully utilize the recommendations and prevent outbreaks of communicable diseases among students in colleges.

KEYWORDS:

• Administration
• community health
• health education

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Caroline Bridges for technical expertise; CDC Division of Global Migration and Quarantine, Quarantine and Border Health Services branch staff who assisted with collecting non-ACHA member school contact information and making follow-up phone calls; and Odell Pilot for assisting with coordinating the distribution of the incentive.

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the United States and received approval from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with a determination that it did not meet the definition of human subjects research under 45 Code of Federal Regulations Part 46.102(d).

Funding

This article was supported by an appointment to the Applied Epidemiology Fellowship Program administered by the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) and funded by the CDC Cooperative Agreement number 5U38HM000414. The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.