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Routine vaccination rates for kindergarten children ticked down during the COVID-19 pandemic and have yet to rebound, a new KFF report stated. At the same time, exemptions from school vaccination requirements have increased, which may have contributed to a recent surge in measles cases, the report said.
During the 2022-2023 school year, 93% of kindergarteners were vaccinated with all state-required vaccines, including measles, mumps, rubella (MMR), DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus, and acellular pertussis), polio and varicella, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This is similar to the previous school year but lower than pre-pandemic levels of 95%, according to the report from KFF, a health policy and research nonprofit organization.
The KFF report looks at the latest trends in children’s routine vaccination rates, the factors contributing to recent vaccination trends, and policy approaches to increasing vaccination rates as children head into a new school year.
For the third year in a row, this MMR vaccination rate fell below the Healthy People 2030 target rate of 95%, the level needed to prevent community transmission of measles, a highly contagious and life-threatening virus, KFF said. This means approximately 250,000 school children were unvaccinated and unprotected against measles.
The CDC reported 97 cases of measles in the first three months of of 2024, which is 17 cases higher than the number in the first quarter of 2023. However, the risk of widespread measles transmission is low, the CDC said.
Factors contributing to recent vaccination trends include shifts in public opinion and rising vaccine hesitancy since the COVID-19 pandemic began, KFF said.
Key highlights in the report include:
The share of kindergarten children who are up to date on their state-required vaccinations has not rebounded to pre-pandemic levels.
Almost three-quarters of states had measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination rates below the Healthy People 2030 “target” rate (95%) for the 2022-2023 school year.
The share of kindergarten children with a vaccine exemption has increased nationally and for 36 U.S. states since the pandemic began. For the 2022-2023 school year, 10 states had exemption rates over 5%, meaning it was not possible for those states to reach coverage rates at or above 95%. Higher exemption rates are associated with lower vaccination coverage rates.
The share of children claiming an exemption from one or more vaccinations rose from 2.5% in the 2019-2020 (pre-pandemic) school year to 3.0% in the 2022-2023 school year, the highest national exemption rate to date.
As of 2023, all states and Washington, D.C. require children to be vaccinated against certain diseases, including MMR, in order to attend public schools, though exemptions are allowed in certain circumstances. All states allow a medical exemption; 46 states and the District of Columbia allow for a religious or personal belief exemption, or both.