In celebration of Immunization Awareness Month, the Center for Disease Control is encouraging parents to get younger children vaccinated before the beginning of the school year.

The CDC says vaccines do not just protect the people who get them but those around the vaccinated.

At the top of the mandated vaccines for students in New Jersey's public schools is DTaP, which protects against whooping cough. The CDC has reported 18,000 cases of whooping cough in 2012, more than twice as many as the same time last year.