Fewer than half of adolescents receive preventive care, and many have no primary care physician (PCP) visits, according to a recent study. This reinforces the need to offer outreach to adolescents to improve rates of preventive visits, and to take advantage of all primary care visits for vaccinations. Since pediatricians and family practice/general practice physicians vaccinate most adolescents, these providers should remain the target audience for vaccine education and quality improvement activities. Researchers performed a secondary data set analysis of the 2014 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. They found:

• During a 12-month period, almost half of participants had no PCP visits, and one-third had a preventive visit to a PCP.
• An additional 19% had only nonpreventive care visits to a PCP.
• Uninsured participants had the highest rate of no care, and the lowest rate of preventive care.
• Most preventive care visits by adolescents aged 11 to 17 years were to pediatricians.
• Overall, 67% of non-check-up PCP visits were for acute care, 10% were for follow-up, and 7% for immunization only.
• Nationally, 61%, 26%, and 12% of vaccines were given at preventive, immunization-only, and acute/follow-up visits, respectively.