* African Americans suffer from higher percentages of chronic diseases such as heart disease, kidney disease and diabetes which are perpetuated by a lack of access to quality care. Currently, 48% of African American adults suffer from a chronic disease compared to 39% of the general population.
Vaccines are medicines that boost the immune system's natural ability to protect the body against âforeign invaders,â mainly infectious agents, that may cause disease. The immune system is a complex network of organs, tissues, and specialized cells that act collectively to defend the body.ancer preventive vaccines target infectious agents that cause or contribute to the development of cancer (8). They are similar to traditional vaccines, which help prevent infectious diseases, such as measles or polio, by protecting the body against infection.
Vaccination is the administration of antigenic material (a vaccine) to stimulate an individual's immune system to develop adaptive immunity to a pathogen. Vaccines can prevent or ameliorate morbidity from infection. When a sufficiently large percentage of a population has been vaccinated, this results in herd immunity. The effectiveness of vaccination has been widely studied and verified; for example, the influenza vaccine, the HPV vaccine, and the chicken pox vaccine.