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The CDC, the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) jointly issue a child and teen immunization schedule each year. Then the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), with input from many liaison organizations, reviews the schedule to ensure consistency with new vaccine developments and policies, and publishes it each year. Before a vaccination can become part of routine medical practice, three steps must be taken: the FDA must license the vaccine; ACIP and the Committee on Infectious Diseases of the AAP and AAFP must recommend the vaccine for use; and the vaccine must be subsidized to cover children without private health insurance.

A booster, known as Tdap, is given at ages 11 to 12. A teen who missed this booster should receive it. Immunity to diphtheria and tetanus starts to fade over time, so adults need a booster shot every 10 years throughout life for protection.

The Hib vaccine routinely recommended to prevent serious illness in children provides protection against only the type of meningitis caused by Haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib). It doesn't protect against any other type of meningitis, such as meningococcal or pneumococcal meningitis or viral meningitis. The pneumococcal vaccine is now routinely given to children and may decrease infection by pneumococcal meningitis, although not enough time has elapsed since the beginning of routine pneumococcal immunization to verify that. Children ages 11 and 12 should receive the meningococcal conjugate vaccine to help prevent another type of meningitis. Meningitis is a general term for a viral or bacterial infection of the fluid in a person's spinal cord and the fluid that surrounds the brain. Bacterial meningitis is usually more severe than viral meningitis and may lead to brain damage, hearing loss, or learning disability. Before the 1990s, Hib was the leading cause of bacterial meningitis, but the Hib vaccine has dramatically reduced the occurrence of this illness.

This type of meningitis strikes quickly, causing severe headache, stiff neck, and fever, and is usually fatal. Often, by the time symptoms appear, treatment cannot save the victim. Meningococcal meningitis is spread by droplets in the air and by direct contact with an infected person, including coughing, kissing, and sharing cigarettes, utensils, cups, or lip balm—anything an infected person touches with his or her mouth. Those most at risk for this illness include high school and college students, particularly freshmen living in dormitories; U.S. military recruits; people traveling to countries that have an outbreak of meningococcal disease; and those who might have been exposed to meningitis during an outbreak. Although rare, the illness is significant enough that ACIP recommends all children ages 11 to 12 years of age get the meningococcal vaccine. The vaccine is also recommended for all teens entering high school who have not been previously immunized against it and for college freshmen living in dormitories. The protection lasts about three years.

Teens should receive the "catch-up" chickenpox (varicella) vaccine if they missed it as a child. In childhood, the vaccine is routinely given in two doses, the first at ages 12 to 15 months and the second at ages 4 to 6 years.

The risk for hepatitis A increases with certain lifestyles (males who have sex with males, and users of illegal drugs) and occupations (health care or laboratory workers who come in contact with the hepatitis A virus), and for people who travel to countries where hepatitis A is common. Anyone at increased risk should be vaccinated. Teens with clotting-factor disorders or chronic liver disease should also receive the vaccine. (Any child age 1 or older who may be exposed to hepatitis A can receive the vaccine; it is often combined with the vaccine for hepatitis B.) Two doses of the vaccine are given six months apart.

Hepatitis B immunization is now recommended by ACIP for all adolescents.

Adolescents are just as likely to get the flu as children or adults. Teens are less at risk for complications of the flu because they are healthy with strong immune systems; those at highest risk for complications are the very young and the elderly. Although flu shots aren’t required for teens, the CDC strongly recommends annual flu shots for everyone, no matter what age.

Although most people think of immunizations given as shots, newer vaccines can be given by other means. The flu vaccine comes in a version that sprays in the nose. This version is available for children and adults ages 5 to 49. The typhoid vaccine is given by mouth. Other vaccines are given by injection: DTaP, MMR, and Hib, for example.

Most children get a second MMR around ages 4 to 6 years, when they start school. Some children, however, miss getting that second MMR and must make it up at the beginning of high school. Rubella, the “R” in MMR, can cause severe development problems and mental retardation in the developing fetus. Requiring teens to get a second MMR ensures complete immunity to rubella, so that when a young woman later gets pregnant, rubella will not cause problems for her developing child.

HPV vaccine is recommended, but not required, for girls and women ages 9 to 24 to prevent genital warts and cervical cancer. The vaccine is given in a series of three shots over several months. Experts suggest that the vaccine be given at the adolescent health care visit at age 11 or 12. Although HPV vaccine has been approved for boys to prevent genital warts, the ACIP has not put the vaccine on its recommended list.