Status report on the Childhood Immunization Initiative: national, state, and urban area vaccination coverage levels among children aged 19-35 months--United States, 1996.

The Childhood Immunization Initiative (CII), a comprehensive response to under-vaccination among preschool-aged children, was initiated in the United States in 1993 (1). The CII established the goal of increasing vaccination coverage levels among children aged 2 years to > or = 90% by 1996 for the most critical doses of each vaccine routinely recommended for children (except hepatitis B vaccine, for which the objectives were to increase coverage to 70% by 1996 and 90% by 1998). This report presents final 1996 estimates of coverage with vaccines targeted by CII among children aged 19-35 months, which indicate that in 1996 all national vaccination coverage goals were exceeded for the routinely recommended vaccines.