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Find Your Vaccination Records Online: COVID, Flu Shots, and More
The Problem
Many years ago, if you wanted to review the vaccinations that you (or a family member) had received, whether you were filling out a form at a new doctor's office, traveling, enrolling in school, applying for certain jobs, enlisting in the military, or just curious, you simply called your doctor's office because they kept those records.
These days, with the wide variety of places where you might get many kinds of vaccines over time (COVID-19, flu shots, shingles, etc.), including doctor's offices, schools, local pharmacies, pop-up clinics run by your town's Health Department, and privately-run urgent-care facilities, if you haven't kept careful track of them yourself, where could you find those records?
A good solution: The Department of Public Health in your state
Every healthcare professional that administers vaccines and immunizations is required to report that information to the Department of Public Health in the state where they operate.
Each state has a separate Immunization Information System (IIS) that you can use to access your records online. Some give you online access quickly, others require that you scan and upload a photo ID (like your drivers license), and then may take up to 2 weeks to send your records.
These systems are only as good as the information that they have received, so their records may not be perfect. For example, their records might not include every vaccine that you have received, their records will only go back a certain number of years, and the list that they provide may not be in chronological order.
Also, if you have lived in more than one state, you will need to visit the online system for each of those states in order to put together a full list.
Different kinds of online vaccine information
As you look around online, bear in mind that there are at least three different resources that you may find:
- General information about vaccines, how they work, late-breaking news about which ones have been approved, etc.
- Where to get a vaccine in your area, currently available dates and times, whether it's free or requires that you have insurance, etc.
- Where to find records of the vaccines and immunizations that you have received, which is the focus of this newsletter.
How to find your state's vaccine and immunization system
There are many ways to find your state's Immunization Information System (IIS):
Method 1: The following link currently takes you to the CDC's IIS list for each state:
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/programs/iis/contacts-locate-records.html
Method 2: If that link doesn't work, try this:
- Go to http://www.cdc.gov
- Click "Health Topics"
- Under BROWSE BY LETTER, click "I" for Immunizations
- Scroll down and click "Immunizations Registries"
- Scroll down and on the right, under "Looking For Immunization Records?" click "How to Find Your Immunization Record"
- Scroll down to find the links for your state's Immunization Information System (IIS); even though it says "Find Your Child's Immunization Record," this information also applies to adults
Method 3: Where STATE is the name of the state where you live (e.g., California), try these Google searches:
- google: STATE iis
- google: STATE immunization registry
- google: STATE records vaccination OR immunization
Example: Massachusetts
Here is the link to the Massachusetts Immunization Information System (MIIS):
http://myvaxrecords.mass.gov
It provides two types of vaccination lists:
- A list of all of your vaccinations, in alphabetical order by Vaccine name (not sorted by date)
- A "COVID-19 SMART Health Card" which gives you an electronic equivalent to a paper CDC COVID-19 Vaccination Record Card with your name, social security number, and a list of your COVID vaccines and boosters (in chronological order), which you can also print out.
Example: California
California has two online systems:
Where to go from here
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