Underused Vaccines: Pneumonia, HPV

While pneumonia is one of the top causes of death for seniors, only about half of Florida’s Hispanic seniors were vaccinated in 2011, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports. Experts say many Hispanics don’t know about the vaccine or don’t understand it; they recommend public awareness campaigns that model the multilingual push for flu shots.  
 
Meantime, a majority of teen girls have not been vaccinated against human papillomavirus, the New York Times reports. Health officials are trying to downplay the fact that the shot protects against a sexually transmitted disease, and instead emphasize cervical cancer prevention.