Some residents may be getting a call from the County Health and Human Services Agency’s Immunization Program in the coming months.

Eleven interviewers will be calling residents Monday through Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. and on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The interviewers speak six different languages: English, Spanish, Tagalog, Hindu, Korean and Chinese.

The County is emphasizing the importance for residents to pick up and answer the callers’ questions, as their responses will help determine how many people are up-to-date on immunizations. Interviews will take from 5-20 minutes. If the interviewer calls residents at an inconvenient time, they can make appointments to complete their surveys over the phone at a different time.

Phone calls are made using Random Digit Dialing, where interviewers make phone calls to randomly selected phone numbers and ask participants about their knowledge, attitudes and beliefs on vaccinations.

The phone calls started in early July and will continue until June 30, 2017.

“Our goal is to complete more than 3,000 surveys over the next 11 months,” said Wilma Wooten, M.D., M.P.H., County public health officer. “To accomplish this goal, interviewers are likely to make more than 350,000 calls.”

The results of the survey will provide valuable data to determine what proportions of infants, pregnant women, adolescents, adults and seniors living in San Diego County are fully immunized. The information collected is used to plan education and outreach programs that help inform our San Diego communities about how to protect themselves from vaccine preventable diseases.