Health promotion is an essential element for the health of a society, a key element of Healthy People 2020 and a major role of the nurse. Health promotion involves education and preventive strategies. Vaccination is a health promotion activity as its goal is to prevent disease (Edelman and Mandle, 2010). Thanks to vaccination, it is possible to significantly reduce the incidence of many diseases. Diseases that can be prevented through vaccination are called vaccine-preventable diseases. Some of the commonly vaccinated infections include polio, measles, Haemophilus Influenzae type b, pertussis, pneumococcus, rubella, chickenpox, hepatitis B, diphtheria, tetanus, and mumps (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2013). Issues in Vaccine Safety,” written by Roberta Kwok, provides a discussion on the topic of vaccine safety. It provides information on real safety concerns specific to vaccination and also mentions false safety concerns that have sparked public concern. It offers a discussion of how false vaccine risks can make it difficult for the scientific community to assess real risks. He mentions that vaccine manufacturers are “victims of their own success” (Kwok, 2011), largely due to vaccine safety. He does this by discussing the low risk rates of contracting the disease that the vaccine is trying to prevent and the low number of cases of contracting the disease that are causing public outcry. The article also discusses other potential side effects of vaccinations and the frequency of these side effects. It touches on the need to quickly identify certain side effects so that their correlation with vaccine administration can be... middle of paper ......weigh the risks. But as the disease recedes from public memory, the population's tolerance for side effects decreases even further” (Kwok, 2011). This statement couldn't be better. Our generation has never had to face diseases like smallpox and polio. The prevention of these diseases should be able to persist thanks to the act of vaccination and this practice should start from early childhood. ReferencesEdelman, CL and Mandle, CL (2010). Health promotion throughout life. (7th ed.). St. Louis: Mosby Elsevier. Kwok, R. (2011). Vaccines: The real issues of vaccine safety. Nature, 473(7348), 436-438. doi:10.1038/473436aDepartment of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2013). What would happen if we stopped vaccinations? Retrieved from website: http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/whatifstop.htm