Vaccines Seek to Offer Cradle-to-Grave Protection

New vaccines also have been springing up for the elderly, specifically immunization that provides protection against pneumonia and shingles.

To keep track of all these changes, Weida recommends that families choose a doctor and stick with him or her.

"If my patients come in for a routine visit or a sick visit, I'll look at their immunization record," he said. "You're not going to get that so much if you're bouncing around from provider to provider, because they're not going to have the record."

A more promising means of making vaccination easier is the movement toward creating nasal or oral vaccines, Campos-Outcalt said. A nasal flu vaccine already has been produced, and others are on the way.

A widespread belief that some childhood vaccines are linked to autism has hampered improvement of the vaccination rate, despite numerous studies that have disproved the claim.

It has become a great source of frustration among public health experts, Campos-Outcalt said.

"To me, it's kind of puzzling," he said. "The evidence is becoming clearer every day that vaccines do not cause autism. But there are some very stubborn groups out there who still make that claim."

More information

To learn more about vaccines, visit the CDC.