How To Track Down Your Childhood Immunization Records

Date: 07/24/18

There are lots of reasons you might need a copy of your childhood immunization records. You may need them for a job, or if you decide to go to college, or your new doctor may need them for your medical records.

Whatever the reason you need them, it helps to know how to track down copies of your immunization records. Here’s how to start:

1.    Start with your childhood doctor. Ask your parents for the names of the doctors you saw as a child. You may have received your immunizations in different places, so it’s important to know every place you got an immunization. Remember, most doctor’s offices only keep immunization records for a few years after you stop seeing them, so you may have to look in other places, too.

2.    Go through your baby book. Sometimes, parents put childhood immunization records with your childhood keepsakes, like your baby book, or keep them with your family’s important papers. Look through these items to see if your immunization records are among them.

3.    Contact the schools you attended. When your parents enrolled you in school, or when you went college, you probably were required to have a copy of your immunization records on file. The schools or college you attended may still have copies of those records.

4.    Go online. You can click here to submit a vaccination records request to the Louisiana Office of Public Health. If you didn’t live in Louisiana as a child, you can try the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC. The CDC has an interactive map that helps you find state or local immunization or public health clinics across the country.

5.    Try LINKS. In Louisiana, we have the Louisiana Immunization Network for Kids, or LINKS. Your current doctor may be able to use this web-based tool to search for your immunization records. You can also request a copy of your immunization records from LINKS by clicking here.