NEW YORK – Vaccination rates for US kindergarteners fell again last year, and federal officials are launching a new campaign to try to raise them again.
Typically, 94% to 95% of kindergarten children are vaccinated against measles, tetanus, and certain other diseases. Immunization rates fell below 94% in the 2020-2021 school year, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to learn Results released on Thursday showed rates fell again to about 93% in the 2021-2022 school year.
The pandemic disrupted immunizations and other routine child health care, and also strained the ability of school administrators and nurses to keep track of which children were not up to date on immunizations. CDC officials said reduced confidence in vaccines is another likely factor.
“I think it’s a combination of all of those things,” said Dr. Georgina Peacock, Director of the CDC’s Immunization Division.
Health officials focus on kindergarten because that’s where most children enter the school systems. Public schools typically require immunizations as a condition of attendance, although some exceptions are allowed.
Such exemptions have increased slightly over the past school year, but the CDC’s Shannon Stokley said they were not the main reason for the decline. Rather, more schools were relaxing their policies to allow enrollment while giving families a grace period to get shots, she said.
The new figures suggest that as many as 275,000 kindergarten children are not fully vaccinated.
Experts say falling vaccination rates are opening the door to outbreaks of diseases that were once suspected in rear-view mirrors. They point to a case of paralytic polio reported in New York last year and recent measles outbreaks in Minnesota and Ohio.
These outbreaks coincide with anecdotal and survey information suggesting that more parents are questioning basic childhood vaccines, long hailed as public health success stories.
A survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation last month found that parents have less support for school vaccine requirements than a 2019 survey.
“It’s crazy. There’s so much to do,” said Dr. Jason Newland, MD, pediatric infectious disease physician at St. Louis Children’s Hospital and vice chair of community health at Washington University.
Other doctors have told him that more and more parents are being choosy about which vaccines to give their children. CDC data reflected the following: Chickenpox vaccination rates fell more than measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination rates.
This week, the CDC launched a campaign called “Let’s RISE” — an acronym for “Routine Immunizations on Schedule for Everyone.” It includes new educational materials to help doctors talk to families about immunizations, as well as information for families who have questions about immunizations .
Building trust in immunization “has to be done at the local and community levels,” Peacock said.
Thursday’s CDC study was based on immunization reports from public school kindergartens in 49 states and reports from private schools in 48 states. Montana did not report any data.
Prices vary across the country. CDC officials noted significant increases in some states, including Hawaii, Maine, Maryland and Wyoming. But most states saw declines, with the biggest falls in Mississippi, Georgia and Wisconsin.
A Second CDC report On Thursday, vaccination rates among younger children were found to remain high and stable overall, although there were declines among children who were poor and lived in rural areas. The report was based on a 2021 nationwide phone survey of parents of children around the age of 2.
Why the difference? CDC officials said it appeared that doctors and parents made sure younger and more vulnerable children received initial immunization coverage during the pandemic, but there may have been a decline in booster doses and additional shots as children got older.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, transcribed or redistributed without permission.
