The article described how, after a measles outbreak in 2009 in a Roma community in Pulawy, Poland, the local health department organized a mass immunisation campaign that also allowed us to estimate the community\u2019s size and assess vaccination coverage. We found that the Roma population was larger than official records suggested, with many residents\u2014especially children\u2014not registered for healthcare services and thus lacking access to regular medical checks. Among children under 20, only about half had been vaccinated according to the national schedule, and coverage for the second measles vaccine dose was particularly low. The findings highlighted the need for better demographic data, improved access to healthcare, and targeted vaccination efforts for Roma communities to prevent future outbreaks and support public health goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The idea for this investigation emerged somewhat spontaneously. While preparing a targeted immunization campaign, we realized it could also serve as an opportunity to estimate the size of the community by comparing official administrative records with the number of people who attended the event. I was struck by the fact that this Roma community\u2014settled for many decades and living in apartment buildings\u2014had a much lower life expectancy than the general population in Poland. We also observed limited access to healthcare services and lower vaccination coverage compared with the broader Polish population.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Article in English published in the journal Eurosurveillance<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":1074,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":true},"class_list":["post-1229","publikacje","type-publikacje","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publikacje\/1229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publikacje"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/publikacje"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}