National, state, and urban area vaccination levels among children aged 19-35 months--United States, 2002.

Each annual birth cohort in the United States comprises approximately four million infants. Maintaining the gains in childhood vaccination coverage achieved during the 1990s among these children poses an ongoing challenge for public health. The National Immunization Survey (NIS) provides annual estimates of vaccination coverage among children aged 19-35 months for each of the 50 states and 28 selected urban areas. This report presents NIS findings for 2002, which indicate a marked nationwide increase in coverage with >/=1 dose of varicella vaccine (VAR), substantial uptake for >/=3 doses of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV), generally steady coverage levels for other vaccines nationwide, and continued wide variability in coverage among the states and selected urban areas.