Monitoring Vaccine Safety: United States Vaccine Safety Surveillance Systems

Immunization is an effective public health tool to protect children from hospitalization and death from vaccine-preventable diseases. Vaccine safety monitoring is essential to understand risks of vaccination. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention closely monitors vaccine safety through multiple surveillance systems, including V-safe, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, the Vaccine Safety Datalink, and the Clinical Immunization Safety Assessment Network. This article briefly discusses each surveillance system and available evidence that healthcare providers can use to respond to common vaccine concerns. As trusted sources of information about vaccines, pediatric nurses and nurse practitioners need to understand how vaccine safety is monitored, where to access reliable resources about vaccines, and when and where to report adverse events noted after vaccination.