Making a Point : Health: The U.S. surgeon general tours Los Angeles’ minority neighborhoods to urge parents to protect their children with inoculations.

Under a hot sun, in the middle of a neighborhood recently torn by violence and racial tension, the surgeon general of the United States on Tuesday brought a universal message to the parents of the Jordan Downs Housing Project in Watts: Immunize your children.

“Our children are in harm’s way,” Dr. Antonia Novello told the crowd. Just as anyone might rush to pull a child from the path of an oncoming car, so they must see that their children and their neighbors’ children are immunized against measles, polio and other contagious and potentially lethal diseases, Novello said.

It was Novello’s third stop on a tour of Los Angeles’ minority neighborhoods, where a now waning multi-state measles epidemic has taken its greatest toll. In 1990, there were 26,000 cases of measles in the United States; of the 90 deaths nationwide, 20% occurred in Los Angeles County. Most of those who died were preschool-aged inner-city children who had never been immunized.

Novello’s visit was arranged to kick off a national child immunization campaign. All children are supposed to be fully vaccinated by the age of 2, a standard that federal health officials expected would eradicate measles by the year 2000.

But the epidemic that has raged in California since 1987 and had spread to virtually every state by 1990, revealed the failure of public health programs to meet that goal in minority communities. Only 55% of preschool-age youngsters in Los Angeles County have received the standard immunizations, normally administered on a schedule beginning at 2 months of age. School entry requirements generally ensure that children 5 and older are vaccinated, but that is dangerously long to wait, health officials say.

According to Novello, three factors contributed to the problem: increases in the cost of vaccine, insufficient public education, and inadequate public health systems to get vaccine to needy children. President Bush has earmarked an additional $40 million for vaccination in his 1991-92 budget proposal and Congress is debating adding even more. But federal money alone is not enough, officials say

Lack of transportation and baby-sitters, as well as money for clinic fees, often foil parents’ good intentions of having their children vaccinated, Novello said. Long waits for clinic appointments, hours that fail to accommodate working parents and fragmented medical services also deter patients.

Federal health officials are studying ways to reduce these barriers, including making immunization a priority for all social service agencies, not just those dedicated to health.

In many cases, health care must be taken directly to the people. “This mobile van is key,” said Novello of the Watts Health Foundation medical trailer parked at Jordan Downs. In addition to services at the foundation’s clinic at 10300 S. Compton Ave., the van travels to neighborhoods where its staff provides immunizations, checkups and other medical services.

Norma McGee, a nurse on the mobile van for the last two years, said as many as 150 patients are seen each day, including homeless children and their parents. “The parents are aware of the need to get the immunization for their kids, they just can’t get in” at the overcrowded county-run clinics, McGee said.

Less than three weeks ago, an arson fire that killed five members of a Mexican-American family divided blacks and Latinos at Jordan Downs, with some blaming the fire on racial hostilities. But Novello’s address brought together an audience of black and Latino parents.

Novello’s visit was sponsored by the National Immunization Campaign, a coalition of community and health-oriented groups organized by Hollywood-based entertainment executives and the American Academy of Pediatrics. A toll-free number has been set up to provide information on immunization clinics: 1-800-356-KIDS.

Novello began her day at the Chinatown Services Center at 600 N. Broadway, which provides medical services to Los Angeles’ Asian community. The need, though, is fast outstripping the clinic’s resources, administrator Pearl Tse said.

“We have a great problem reaching the new immigrants, mostly from the interior areas of China,” Tse said. “They care. They just don’t know at all about immunization. We have to teach them, but we only have so many bilingual workers.”

Novello, a pediatrician by training, administered vaccine to several young patients there, including Jackie Liu, 13 months. He cried, and no amount of cooing by the nation’s top doctor helped. The needle still hurt.