Story highlights Preventable and deadly diseases are roaring back to life, Brigitte Roth Tran says

Tran: Way to increase vaccination rate is to ask caretakers, visitors if they're vaccinated

Brigitte Roth Tran is a doctoral candidate in economics at the University of California, San Diego. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

(CNN) Whooping cough commonly kills newborns but can be prevented through vaccination and avoiding infected individuals. Measles, which made the headlines recently with a large outbreak traced to Disneyland, is also deadly and similarly preventable with vaccination. But people are not vaccinating as they should be. While it's a matter of personal choice, it's also a serious matter of public health, and these preventable and deadly diseases are roaring back to life.

Measles was eliminated in the United States in 2000. However, between 2013 and 2014 the incidence of measles in the United States tripled -- to more than 600 cases. This figure may not be the world tally of 400 people a day dying from the disease, but it is unacceptable. And the scenario for whooping cough? 2012 saw nearly 50 times as many cases as the low in 1976 , and 2014 data will likely be worse.

As a mom whose 3-month-old daughter got whooping cough, I can get riled up about people choosing not to vaccinate themselves or their children.

As an economist, I have a proposal to increase the vaccination rate: Ask whether your family's caretakers and visitors are vaccinated and, when appropriate, insist that they be.

Brigitte Roth Tran

When my son was born in 2010, right after news reports of two local newborns dying from whooping cough, my husband and I decided to "cocoon" him by ensuring that anyone who visited or came into contact with our newborn was fully vaccinated. This mostly involved staying in a lot and making sure that the grandparents were current on their vaccines. For us, it was the best way to protect him when he was still too young to be vaccinated.

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