Findley, S., et al. (2009). Effectiveness of a Community Coalition for Improving Child Vaccination Rates in New York City. American Journal of Public Health. 98 (11): 1959-62. Abstract and Citation -- the title of the article was quite specific, indicating a narrow topic -- how effective a community coalition would be for helping improve vaccination rates in a specific city, in this case New York. The abstract was rather weak in this case, and while it did provide a broad overview, it was very succinct: what was done, who the population was, and what the outcome was. One could not infer nor glean more than cursory knowledge about the topic through the Abstract.

Research Question- the research question was primary within the documents. Essentially, the question was would a community coalition using reminders, tracking and outreach improve the likelihood that children in New York City would receive appropriate and timely vaccinations? Specifically, what can be done within a community to help ensure that young children, in this case in New York City, who have lower than average immunization rates (57%) will increase their rates of needed immunizations without the use of draconian measures.

Sources- This article is a primary source because it uses actual research to determine the answer to the hypothesis and question. There are a number of secondary sources used to buttress the assertions, though.

References- There are 29 references...

However, about 1/2 of the references cited were pre-2000, which means over eight years dated from the publication of the article. The sources were reputable, though, but one might have preferred more than half the sources to be current.
Content- the article is well written in a consistent professional and academic style. The base focus is that of researchers and public health professionals. The focus of the article is to find ways for the community to "own" more of the program rather than it being pushed by social services and public health personnel. For an academic paper, the paper is quite short (three pages). There are few figures, which is weakness, since much of the data is cohort dependent and could have been enhanced through use of graphs or charts rather than verbal indicators of statistical data.

Organizationally, the article is logical and follows a standard scientific methodology. It used a quasi-experimental design using a birth cohort of almost 11,000 children born between April 1999 and September 2003. The cohort was selected from the primary community hospital in which over 1/2 of the births occur. The study was a two-0=year effort using the hospital database for demographics as well as the New York Citywide Immunization Registry. The study focused specifically on up-to-date immunizations for…