Strategy
Missouri’s immunization department developed a data dashboard to help streamline communication around immunization rates. This dashboard became a tool they used to strengthen their relationship with media sources and their partnership with school nurses.
Challenge
Missouri’s immunization program routinely received media inquiries and public requests to ask about immunization rates. The program saw an uptick in requests during back-to-school season and when disease outbreaks occurred. Though the requests came in monthly and sometimes weekly, there was no way to communicate immunization rates publicly, which became a time constraint on program staff.
Solution
Missouri developed a data dashboard utilizing Tableau to display kindergarten and eighth grade immunization rates. The dashboard launched in December 2024 and has multiple data points, including school year, school type (private or public), grade level, vaccine series, region, and county. Additionally, the counties can be viewed by exemption rates and fully immunized rates. The kindergarten data also populates into a separate infographic resource that displays county–level measles vaccination coverage.
Outcome
Missouri’s immunization program established an ongoing partnership with school nurses. This partnership offered the immunization program the opportunity to present a demonstration of the data dashboards at the MO Association of School Nurses’ annual conference. Additionally, they collaborated on webinars and town hall events.
The dashboard was launched without any major promotion plan, but after measles outbreaks began in 2025 local media discovered the site. Media sources began using the dashboard to bring awareness to the increasing rates of statewide exemptions over the last five years. Missouri’s transparent approach has given the media and the public easier access to data that previously was more time consuming to gather. Thanks to the positive feedback from partners and the public, the immunization program plans to find other ways to use the tools to communicate coverage and exemption rates, such as developing “report cards” for school districts.
Supplemental Materials