Home-based, personal health records—such as vaccination cards or child health passports—are an important public health tool and serve many critical roles, especially in the delivery of immunization services (Box 1). Home-based records (HBRs) provide frontline health care workers with a standardized patient history that is convenient, comprehensive, and vital to making informed decisions about the need for immunization services and, in some instances, other primary health care services. HBRs extend the relationship between the health care worker and client or caregiver beyond an individual health encounter by improving caregiver understanding and expectations about health services. Of course, to fulfill these functional roles, certain conditions must be satisfied. For example, HBRs must be available in the right place, at the right time, and in the right quantity to avoid stock-outs.1 They must be valued and retained by caregivers, and health care workers must request them, reference them, and ensure they are legibly completed and up-to-date. Importantly, HBRs are a document rightly due of all newborns and their caregivers as part of national promises made by signatories to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (Articles 3 and 24)2 to protect children's health through primary health care and engagement of caregivers in making decisions about the health care (and protection from vaccine-preventable disease) of their children.
Functional Roles and Requisite Conditions of Home-Based Records
Functional Roles
Home-based records (HBRs) serve as a tool for documenting vaccinations and other primary care services, particularly during childhood but increasingly across the life course, in a standardized manner.
When appropriately completed and referenced, HBRs provide necessary …